This article presents not only an empirical analysis of the voting records of the Council of the European Union, but also an analysis of the acts that have not been passed and therefore represents an innovative approach to research on the voting practice in the Council of the European Union. The aim of this paper is to further our empirical knowledge of the Council decision-making process by examining a data set consisting of all acts proceeded in the Council from 2005 to 2006. The data confirm that generally the Member States made collective decisions by consensual negotiations, even in the 80 per cent cases where they could activate voting, and that the new Member States contested votes less often than the old ones.
Przy wykorzystaniu autorskiego programu komputerowego wykonano symulacje głosowań w Radzie po wystąpieniu Wielkiej Brytanii z UE. W przypadku części z nich zastosowano innowację metodologiczną polegającą na odejściu od założenia, że powstanie każdej z możliwych koalicji jest równie prawdopodobne. Przeprowa dzona analiza wskazuje, że po Brexicie znacząco zmieni się zdolność członków Rady do tworzenia małych koalicji minimalnie blokujących. Jednocześnie ocena zdolności państw do blokowania decyzji w Radzie, dokonana w oparciu o Preventive Power Index, różni się zasadniczo od wyników analizy skupiającej się na budowie małych koalicji minimalnie blokujących. Prezentowane badania zostały sfinansowane przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki w ramach projektu no. UMO-2016/23/D/HS5/00408 (konkurs SONATA 12) zatytułowanego Wpływ brexitu i bezwarunkowego wprowadzenia systemu głosowania „podwójną większością” na proces decyzyjny w Radzie Unii Europejskiej.
EN
Using a proprietary computer program, simulations of voting in the Council after Great Britain’s withdrawal from the EU were carried out. In the case of some of them, a methodological innovation consisting in departing from the assumption that the emergence of each possible coalition is equally probable was used. The analysis conducted indicates that after Brexit the ability of the Council members to form small minimally blocking coalitions will change significantly. At the same time, the assessment of the ability of states to block decisions in the Council and made on the basis of the Preventive Power Index, differs fundamentally from the results of the analysis focusing on building small minimally blocking coalitions.This research is funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under project no. UMO-2016/23/D/HS5/00408 (SONATA 12 grant) entitled “The Impact of Brexit and Unconditional Introduction of the ‘Double Majority’ Voting System on Decision-Making in the Council of the European Union.”
Problems and traps of the eligibility of expenditure in projects co-financed by ERDF and CF in the field of cultureThe structural and cohesion funds play a very significant role in financing investments in the cultural sector in Poland. The eligibility of expenditure under the European Structural and Investment Funds is determined on the basis of national legislation, with the exception of cases in which specific provisions were laid down in the EU Regulations or under them. This means that the detailed requirements and rules for incurring costs, documenting them, as well as settling them are practically determined on the level of the EU Member States. Therefore, the national regulations largely determine the degree of difficulty in correctly settling the costs of a project, which in turn affects the absorption capacity of EU funds. Most frequent errors in spending the EU money concern the eligibility of expenditures. To attract a structural fund support, expenditure by projects must be eligible in terms of the Operational Programme, the relevant EC Regulations and the national eligibility rules. Based on the author’s practical experience and the content analysis of formal documents as regards the European cohesion policy, this paper presents problems of determining the eligibility of expenditure in the case of cultural projects. Irregularities in the disbursement of funds may lead to the imposition of financial corrections onto beneficiaries, or to deeming the whole or part of the expenditure as non-eligible. The author suggests how to avoid irregularities as regards personnel costs and public procurement rules on the national and European Union level in projects co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund.
This article considers potential impact of the Presidency’s influence on decision outcomes, by using the agenda-shaping powers. The main thesis is that a member state benefits from holding the Presidency. The competencies of the Presidency allow a member state to exercise an extraordinary amount of influence, effecting positive changes on state power. It make available for states a wide range of the agenda-shaping instruments to influence outcomes in European Union policy-making.
James S. Coleman proposed the power of a collectivity to act as a measure of the ease with which the individual interests of one member can be transformed into the collective action of a voting body, or into decisions being undertaken by that body which go against the interests of the voters. It was also to be applied in simple voting games, for which the vote threshold was set at a lower level than the majority of votes. Coleman based his model for determining the power of a collectivity to act on the classical definition of probability. In practice, the index is calculated as a quotient of the number of winning coalitions and of all possible coalitions which can be formed by the players – under the existing voting rule. The central hypothesis of the article has as its premise that in proper, simple nperson voting games the Coleman index does not determine passage probability, but only the probability of drawing a winning coalition from the set of all possible combinations of members of the voting body. A new index has also been proposed which should serve to determine a collectivity’s power to act.
Artykuł analizuje potencjalny wpływ brexitu oraz nowych ram prawnych w zakresie statystyk europejskich w dziedzinie demografii na formalną siłę głosu Polski w Radzie UE w przypadku podejmowania decyzji kwalifikowaną większością głosów. Hipoteza przewodnia pracy zakłada, że wystąpienie Wielkiej Brytanii z Unii Europejskiej oraz wprowadzenie nowego sposobu określania liczby ludności państw członkowskich UE dla potrzeb podejmowania decyzji w Radzie prowadzi do kolejnego przepływu formalnej siły głosu na rzecz krajów o największej populacji, jak również zmniejsza zdolność Polski do budowania koalicji ściśle minimalnych blokujących, a w szczególności w opozycji do koalicji tworzonej przez Niemcy i Francję lub tzw. trójkę z Ventotene.
EN
The article analyses the potential impact of Brexit and the new legal framework for European statistics in demography on the formal voting power of Poland in the Council of the European Union, in the case of adopting decisions by the qualified majority of votes. The leading hypothesis of the paper assumes that the fact of leaving the European Union by Great Britain and the new method of determining the population of EU Member States for the purposes of making decisions in the Council of the European Union leads to another transfer of formal voting power to the benefit of countries with the largest populations, as well as reduces the ability of Poland to build strictly minimally blocking coalitions, in particular in opposition to the coalition being formed by France and Germany or the so-called “Trio of Ventotene”.
The concept of power is central to international relations. This article examine the sources of power and the relationship of different power sources. We first begin by review of a taxonomy of power sources, and after that we generate new taxonomy. The starting point for opening the conceptual aperture is to identify the critical dimensions that generate different conceptualizations of power sources. This paper will begin to address these issues and open the door for continued discussion over the nature of power sources in international relations theory and practice.
Artykuł przedstawia analizę struktury blokowania, oryginalną technikę badawczą bazującą na teorii gier głosowania, ale odchodzącą od założenia, że wszystkie możliwe koalicje są równie prawdopodobne. Analiza koncentruje się na zdolności graczy do budowania koalicji minimalnie blokujących i strukturze blokowania dla gry głosowania. Koalicja blokująca jest pojmowana jako kolektywny gracz wetujący, który zgodnie z obowiązującą zasadą głosowania może zablokować zmianę status quo. Proponowana technika badawcza stanowi alternatywę dla zastosowania matematycznych indeksów siły głosu w badaniach takich gremiów decyzyjnych jak np. Rada Unii Europejskiej, w których decyzje wypracowywane są przede wszystkim w drodze negocjacji pomiędzy koalicjami graczy. Stąd też celem pracy jest wypełnienie metodologicznej luki w badaniach nad systemami głosowania.
EN
The article presents the analysis of structure of blocking, an original research technique based on the voting games theory, but departing from the assumption that all possible coalitions are equally likely. The analysis is focused on the players’ ability to build minimal blocking coalitions, and thus on the structure of blocking for voting game. Blocking coalition is understood as collective veto player, which have the right, under voting rule, to block change of the status quo. The proposed research technique provides an alternative for the application of the power index approach to the voting bodies such as the Council of the European Union. Hence, the aim of this work is to fill methodological gap in the research on the voting systems.
Although the rule of law is a normative notion, it requires a multidimensional approach. It speaks to important issues of law and politics, and its respect is essential for both legal and social security. It can be observed within the European Union (EU) where the issue of respect for the rule of law by its Member States has gained particular importance. The main goal of our study is to contribute to the academic discourse concerning the EU rule of law. The analysis particularly considers the approaches adopted by the EU institutions to the definition of this concept. Consequently, the first part of the article concentrates on difficulties in defining the rule of law. The second part presents the evolution of the Court of Justice approach toward this concept. The next part contains the analysis of the attitudes presented by other EU institutions in their documents. In the conclusions, it is underlined that although the approaches of the EU institutions towards the rule of have evolved, and they have tried to define it and indicate its main components, certain issues require clarification, e.g., the relations of the rule of law with other values.
Celem artykułu jest określenie, czy lizboński system podwójnej większości lepiej spełnia kryteria demokratyczności niż system nicejski. By odpowiedzieć na to pytanie, został porównany system nicejski ważenia głosów w Radzie UE z obecnym systemem podwójnej większości. Analiza skupia się na rozważeniu zgodności poszczególnych systemów głosowania z zasadą równoważności głosu. Badanie wykazało, że formalna siła głosu państw jest w systemie nicejskim w większym stopniu proporcjonalna do pierwiastka kwadratowego z ich liczby ludności niż w systemie wprowadzonym w traktacie lizbońskim. Demokratyczność systemu głosowania w UE osłabia także wliczanie do populacji państw członkowskich mieszkańców, którzy nie są jego obywatelami.
EN
The aim of the paper is to determine whether the Lisbon double majority system better meets the criteria of democraticness than the Nice system. In order to answer this question the voting systems in the Council of the European Union – the Nice system was compared with the current system of double majority. The article analyses the concordance of these voting systems with the principle of equivalence of vote. The research shows that formal voting power in the Nice system is more proportionate to the square root of the number of population than in the Lisbon double majority system. The democraticness of the voting system in the UE was also weakened by including to the population member states inhabitants who are not their citizens.
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