VOTING STRENGTH IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT - THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL AND OF PARTISAN ACTORS

Most decisions by the European Parliament are taken by an absolute maj ority of its members. Some decisions however - such as the approval of the budget of the European Union - require a two-thirds majority. The paper analyzes the a priori voting strength of the member states when their representatives vote coherently. It is shown that the increase in votes for Germany in the 1994 reallocation enhanced its position. A less favourable effect, however; can be seen for the other large memb ers (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain). However, since vot es in the EP tend to be cast according to partisan rather than nationa l affiliation, the relative voting power of the political groups with respect to the two quotas is also analyzed. The tool to measure this i s the (normalized) Banzhaf power index, partially extended to account for connected coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of votes between the present EU member states as allocated in proport ion to their population size indeed roughly corresponds to their aprio ri voting power. However, the relative influence of the largest politi cal groups, the European Socialists and the European People's Party, t ends to be overestimated by their share of seats in the framework of t he simple majority rule, but it is considerable if the quota is two-th irds. Finally, under the two-thirds majority rule, the European Libera l, Democratic and Reformist Party as well as the small groups appear t o be almost powerless. The more the EP gains political leverage - a fu rther increase in its institutional powers is to be expected in the fr amework of the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference - the more the dis tribution of voting power between the member states and between the po litical groups will be a crucial factor in the shaping of EU policies.