Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty is the name of the new Treaty covering the European cooperation from 1 December 2009.

- A new voting system moving powers from small to bigger member states will enter into force from 2014.

-The Barroso II Commission was appointed in February 2010 according to the new rules which give much more power to the Commission President. The power to decide is now effectively with the new Commission President, whose appointment must in turn have the support of 18 of the 27 prime ministers and presidents, representing at least 255 out of 345 weighted votes in the Council. In addition he must obtain the support of an absolute majority of the European Parliament for the full college of commissioners.

A special summit in November 2009 nominated a permanent President of the European Council and a new foreign minister who is also be a Vice-President of the European Commission.

From 1 December 2009 many new laws can be decided by qualified majority in the Council of Ministers. A list of the 68 new areas which will be decided by qualified majority vote can be downloaded from the front page of this euabc.

A new foreign and defence office employing 7000 diplomats is now being recruited and installed in the Charlemagne building in Brussels and in the 130 EU delegations to other countries. There may now be more official EU embassies.

The new post-Lisbon EU has legal personality, allowing the EU to negotiate and enter into international Treatys with other states and international organisations in all areas of its powers.

500 million citizens has been endowed with an additional citizenship as EU citizens on top of their national citizenship.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights is now legally binding and offer the citizens competing rights and duties to their national constitutions and the European Convention of Human Rights.

A simple majority requires one more than half of the given votes.

An absolute majority requires more than 50% of all members, irrespective of the number of those voting.

Qualified majority voting means that The votes of the member states are weighted. From 1 November 2014 the Lisbon Treaty imposes a new system, where member states also vote according to their population. Then e.g. Ireland will vote with 4.4 million citizens and Gerany with 82 millions. The system require a „double majority” - as today where laws shall also have a majority of member states voting in favour.

Including the population factor mainly benefits the bigger countries while the "one country one vote" element benefits the smaller countries. The new system makes it much easier to take decisions. Today qualified majority requires 74 % of the weighted votes in the Council.

The Lisbon system requires 72 % of the member states and 65 % of the populationfor the few cases where a proposal does not need a Commission initiative. In this lexicon we call it super-qualified majority. It is used when a new Commission shall be assembled and when the European Council shall elect its new permanent President.