The Nice Treaty and Voting Rules in the Council : A Reply to Moberg (2002)

This response to Moberg (2002) demonstrates that some of his figures and calculations require more thorough analysis. His dismissal of the risk of inertia in the Council after enlargement, his measurement of blocking power of individual EU states and his figures on relative under- and over-representation of EU states in the Council are disputed. The article pleads for a dialogue between academics and practitioners in order to avoid random outcomes and ad hoc deals, such as those resulting from the political bargaining during the 2000 Nice summit meeting. Sound expert advice on voting rules and their effects is desirable for achieving more transparent, equitable and sensible institutional solutions, and allocation of voting weights and seats in the EU Council and Parliament