THE BALANCE BETWEEN SMALL AND LARGE - EFFECTS OF A DOUBLE-MAJORITY SYSTEM ON VOTING POWER IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

In the beginning of 1995, the European Union (EU) has been enlarged by three countries: Austria, Finland, and Sweden. In view of the implica tions on the EU's institutional balance and the possible accession of more states in the future, different proposals are currently made to c hange the system of decision making to one that is more transparent an d that more adequately represents member-states' population sizes. The issue will certainly be intensely debated in the framework of the 199 6 Review Conference of the Maastricht Treaty. One of the current sugge stions aims at establishing a double-majority voting system in the Cou ncil of the EU-formerly the Council of Ministers-requiring a majority of both member-states and their populations within that institution. A nother one aims at introducing a bicameral system. This article analyz es what effects the resort to a double-majority voting system and the introduction of a bicameral structure would have in terms of the membe r-states' quantitative influence in the EU's decision-making process. Voting under the double-majority requirement is modeled by a simple ga me and relative voting power calculated by a (composite) Banzhaf power index.