European Journal of Political Research 44: 65–90, 2005
65
The institution of ‘consensus’ in the European Union: Formal
versus informal decision-making in the Council
DOROTHEE HEISENBERG
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Abstract. Although many have studied European Union (EU) decision-making in order to
evaluate where the locus of power is, most studies have relied on the formal decision-making
rules in the first pillar to theorize the workings of the EU. This assumption is somewhat
problematic given that the informal norms of consensus are the primary mode of decisionmaking (81 per cent of decisions are made by consensus). This article examines the institution of consensus in the EU. It argues that the informal norm of consensus renders
implausible the fundamental assumption of the rational institutionalist literature, challenging the validity of its claims. Finally, the costs and benefits to the EU’s perceived
legitimacy are examined with the argument that the putative benefits of consensual decision-making do not obtain in the EU and that the institution of consensus – the lack of
voting and thus accountability – actually contributes to the perception of a democratic deficit
in the Council.
Introduction
Decision-making in the European Union (EU) is complex: not only does the
legislative process seem to change with every treaty revision, but proposals
are subject to very different requirements, depending on the issue area. Moreover, the process historically has been cloaked in secrecy and only since 1995
have selected statistics become available. It is difficult for all but the most committed analysts of the EU to fully understand the formal process by which
the EU makes decisions. This arcane process, and the various changes to the
process, has been the subject of scholarly analysis and hypothesizing for more
than 20 years. Questions of institutional dominance (Tsebelis 1994; Garrett
1995; Garrett & Tsebelis 2000, 2001a, 2001b) and Member State dominance
(Hosli 1993, 1995) have been examined in various forms, and different conclusions have been drawn about the characterizations of EU decision-making.
Moreover, since so much of the empirical information about the process was
unavailable, the rationalist paradigm was especially prominent in analyzing
the legislative process, making assumptions about strategic actor behavior that
were based on the formal rules of the game.
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA
66
dorothee heisenberg
In contrast, there has been less attention to the informal norms of decisionmaking, probably because they are difficult to observe unless one is an insider,
and even more difficult to generalize in order to theorize. (Exceptions to this
generalization are Moberg (2002), Elgstrom & Jonsson (2000) and Lewis (1998,
2000). Steinberg (2002) analyzes the idea of consensus although he does not
focus on the EU). Literature based on empirical experience in the Council
(Westlake 1995; Sherrington 2000; Hayes-Renshaw & Wallace 1995; Lewis
1998), however, is extremely consistent in showing that consensus decisionmaking is the norm and that voting rarely occurs ‘except in a few areas where
decisions could not be indefinitely delayed or postponed, such as during the
annual budgetary cycle and on internal staffing matters. Most decisions, even
on routine issues, came to be made by letting deliberations and negotiations run
until an agreement finally emerged’ (Nugent 1999: 168–169). These empirical
studies have been borne out by the release of Council voting data that show
that on average from 1994 to 2002, 81 per cent of all decisions were made by
consensus without voting. Thus even when the formal decision-making rule is
voting (a qualified majority vote (QMV) of approximately 71 per cent), the
Council bargains until there in consensus, setting a higher hurdle for itself than
is mandated by the treaties. It is fairly unique to have informal agreements
wherein it is harder to reach decisions than in formal agreements (Lipson
1991), and a greater understanding of consensus and its implications in the EU
decision-making process should serve to underpin any analysis of the EU.
The first part of this article examines the Council’s voting data from 1994
to 2002. By analyzing which countries were more likely to abstain or vote
against a successful legislative proposal, it is suggested that the propensity to
vote against a proposal, or to abstain, is correlated to size rather than wealth,
net contributor status or years in the EU. We then go on to analyze the informal norm of consensus and its implications for academic models of the EU.
The use of informal decision-making rules, or consensus, rather than formal
rules, has implications for the validity of studies that take the formal decisionmaking process as a fundamental assumption in their models. For example,
the rational institutionalists have made claims about the relationship between
the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council based on formal
Council decision-making rules. Some of these derived claims (which the
authors rightly label ‘counterintuitive’) may have been the victim of informal
decision-making processes changing the spatial dynamics on which their
models depend. Similarly, analysis of power within the Council based on a
Member State’s importance in a number of coalitions is likewise impacted by
consensus. Thus, the second part of the article is devoted to implications of
consensus decision-making for rational/formal models of the EU institutional
dynamics.
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
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If the Council bargaining involves less ‘hard nosed bargaining’ and more
‘setting aside national interests to move legislation forward’ as the empiricists
claim (Moberg 2002; Lewis 2000, 1998; Sherrington, 2000), this has implications for the democratic legitimacy of that legislation. The third section of this
article thus examines the informal decision-making through the lens of EU
legitimacy and democracy concerns: what are the advantages and disadvantages of using consensus decision-making instead of voting? On the one hand,
consensus has made possible an enlarging and deepening European community where many if not most, analysts had thought the institutional setup would
force decision-making to grind to a halt. The fact that it did not, and that the
EU continued to legislate and even increased the pace of deepening, created
an outcomes-based legitimacy. On the other hand, there are signs that consensus can create the perceptions of a democratic deficit as well, because there
are information asymmetries and a lack of agent control between the Council
and the voters of the Member States. Thus the institution of consensus has
both costs and benefits that need to be evaluated when one considers trying
to change the existing institutions. This is more than just a theoretical question for the EU: as enlargement has brought the finality debate to the fore, a
thorough discussion of what the Council actually does and its limitations
requires a more nuanced conception of consensus.
Council decision-making
This section briefly details the formal decision-making mechanisms in the EU
legislative process (more detailed accounts can be found in: Nugent 1999;
Dinan 1999; Peterson & Bomberg 1999; Hayes-Renshaw & Wallace 1995, 1997;
Van Schendelen 1996; Raunio & Wiberg 1998; Westlake 1995), in order to
contrast them with consensus decision-making. Formally, legislation in the EU
begins with the Commission making a proposal, which is then passed to the
Council of Ministers and Europear Parliament. The choice of decision-making
procedure depends on the legal basis of the initiative, which the Commission
determines when it drafts a proposal. In the Council, depending on the
decision-making procedure determined by the Commission, legislation is
passed by qualified majority voting (QMV) or unanimity. Although the EP
has evolved to have a much more important impact on the decision-making
process than at its creation (Scully 1997a, 1997b, 2001; Moser 1996; Kreppel
2002), most analysts of EU policy focus on the Council as the most important
decision-making institution of Europe.
Voting is the EU Treaty-prescribed decision-making process for most
first-pillar issues. Moreover, the Council’s procedures mandate secrecy of the
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
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dorothee heisenberg
decision-making process. Thus, although occasionally there may be two-level
game dynamics (Putnam 1988) (e.g., if the ministers are negotiating something
the Member States ultimately will have to ratify) there is less public posturing and little political payoff for obstruction. This creates a structure in which
the substance of the issue can be isolated and negotiated without the distraction of ‘spinning’ the issue to an electorate. Although greater transparency is
an objective of the Council, progress has been slow and Member States can
still choose to make their positions public or not. From a structural perspective, at least, it is difficult to understand the reluctance to vote.
An explanation of this reluctance is more likely to be found in the historical legacy of the Luxembourg Compromise and its formal repeal in the Single
European Act. The Luxembourg Compromise (1966) represented the first
major informal norm in EU decision-making procedures. The compromise
between De Gaulle’s anti-supranationalism and the Treaty of Rome’s mandated evolution to QMV typified many decisions by the Member States to
paper over significant differences about the formal application of EU Treaty
obligations by means of informal, ad hoc agreements between elites. Although
the Single European Act in 1986 curtailed the already limited use of the
Luxembourg Compromise and extended QMV into many other areas of EU
legislation, the informal norms spawned by the Luxembourg Compromise
persist to this day. Most decisions continue to be made by consensus rather
than by voting.
Golub’s (1999) empirical analysis of Council voting before and after the
Single European Act demonstrated that the speed with which legislation was
enacted in the EU did not, in fact, rise with the elimination of the Member
States’ veto in the Single European Act. It had been expected that the elimination of the veto would greatly increase the efficiency of decision-making in
the Council – indeed this was one of the stated aims of the Single European
Act. However, despite the formal change, the informal culture of consensus
persisted.
The EU’s ‘culture of consensus’ is the result of the 40-year history of negotiations among the same partners and the acculturation of new members to
those norms. This means that the negotiations are structured in a framework
where, because of the iterated nature of the negotiations, trust is very high and
reputation matters a great deal. Thus, negotiations are also more ‘personalized’ in the EU than in other multilateral settings because the frequency of
meeting is so much higher and many of the Member State elites have had the
opportunity to interact in earlier positions. It is telling that the history of EU
integration is replete with examples of ‘good chemistry’ between two decisionmakers being the catalyst for achieving new initiatives.
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
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The information gathering and interactions between Member States in the
Council have the effect of creating a ‘common frame of reference’ with which
to understand the issues (Lewis 1998). From the perspective of interpreting
consensus in the Council, it is important to recognize the common understandings that facilitate negotiations, such as the historical importance of the
European project, the necessity of having either Germany or France supporting an initiative and the lack of an exit option or the threat of force. On the
basis of interviews with Coreper participants, Lewis (2000: 261) found five
main features of the decision-making style: diffuse reciprocity, thick trust,
mutual responsiveness, a consensus-reflex and a culture of compromise.
Indeed, the lack of acculturation to the norms of consensus may be the largest
problem of the current enlargement of the EU by 10 new members. Field
(2001: 67–68) argues that after enlargement, the new Member States ‘are likely
to at least partly adopt the norm that they should not allow the smooth functioning of the EU’s business to be impeded by their desires to further national
concerns. However, this is unlikely to prevent the pursuit of national aims by
the new members in areas of particular importance.’
The decision-making structures play a significant role, but it is also the
ability to link bargains in different issue areas that make efficient decisionmaking possible (Moravcsik 1991). In the Council, there is very little secrecy
about positions, reservation prices and potential concessions because the open
dialogue can facilitate bargains. In fact, one could make the analogy that
Council decision-making resembles transactions more than bargaining, in the
sense that each participant knows what the other is demanding and the main
questions revolve around how best to accumulate the currency to meet the
requirements.
Bargaining between Member States can involve informal vote trading
within the existing legislative agenda (‘log rolling’) or inter-temporal vote
swapping because the number of interactions is so high and the reputation and
trust conditions obtain. And, although the structure of the Council institution
mitigates against bargaining across issue areas by organizing along functional
lines, there is in fact a great deal of coordination (GAC, COREPER and even
the European Council) so that in practice, cross-issue bargains can be struck.
In the current draft of the European Constitution, the European Council may
decide how many sectoral councils there will be, thereby (potentially) having
fewer ministers negotiating a wider spectrum of issues. Clearly, one consequence of such a change would be to increase the number of possible bargains
in the Council. Thus consensus in this context is shorthand for ‘selling’ preferences that are not strongly held for advantages in other issue areas or
in future negotiations (‘favor bank’).
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It is possible to make the case that consensus is actually a more efficient
market mechanism in the Council than QMV because it creates more of an
opportunity to generate new bargains (the out-voted minority demands some
consideration in other bargains) and gives preferences different weights that
can be empirically observed and satisfied. The logic here is somewhat neofunctionalist, but the mechanism would be the following: in their search for
agreement in one issue, Member States need to meet the demand of another
Member State in a different issue area which creates demand for another legislative act in that issue. In QMV, if that Member State is not needed in the
majority, its requirements are ignored. To use a financial market analogy, it
creates a liquid market wherein each transaction does not necessarily have to
find one counter party.
On this point, it is important to note that although the bargaining across
issue areas within the Council may look Pareto-optimal in the aggregate, there
are losers that must pretend to go along with the consensus on the individual
issues. From a democratic transparency standpoint, this deception (to the
public) may be problematic because it creates an informal market of IOUs
about which only the insiders are knowledgeable, and which may not correspond to the preferences of the insiders’ constituencies. Thus, to the extent
that voters use revealed preferences (using votes cast in favor or opposed to
a policy as a proxy for a government’s preferences) in their voting calculations
and actually hold governments accountable for those preferences, the practice
of consensus obscures a valuable source of information.
Although the transparency and democracy issues are important and will be
discussed in the final section of this article, the difficulties they pose are distributed symmetrically among all Member States, and so one could argue that
they are the price to be paid for a well-functioning supranational level of governance in Europe without a real federalist system. There are other interpretations of consensus, however, wherein the benefits may not be symmetrical,
or even Pareto-optimal. One unique element of consensus decision-making is
that (unlike voting) it is hypothetically possible to have a proposal pass with
less support than a simple majority. A skillful chairperson exploiting information asymmetries, a skewed distribution of strong and weak preferences of
Member States, hard deadlines, a skewed distribution of higher and lower
ranking ministers, greater and lesser understanding of the proposals, and other
factors make the outcome a hypothetical (though unlikely) possibility.
The Council data, 1994–2002
If consensus decision-making is the norm, it may be difficult to understand the
Member States’ often acrimonious debates about the reallocation of Council
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
the institution of ‘consensus’ in the european union
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voting weights in conjunction with every accession of new members1 or the
reluctance of Member States to apply the use of QMV to new issue areas.
There is, however, no real contradiction in the fact that, although the informal
system of consensus decision-making has prevailed for 45 years, Member
States are guaranteed that it will not break down at some point and the formal
models will begin to be used. Such a scenario can easily be imagined if, for
example, the new Member States were to consistently refuse to go along with
a consensus that did not serve their interests. Indeed, Chirac’s scolding of the
pro-American new Member States before the Iraq War was perhaps more of
a warning about adhering to the norms of the EU’s decision-making than an
attempt to bully them in public to change their position on Iraq. Thus, although
the weights of Council votes are largely irrelevant in consensus decisionmaking, Member States will expend significant political capital in enlargement
negotiations to maximize their Council votes as insurance against the breakdown of the informal process.
This section examines what the absence of consensus can tell us about the
institution of consensus. In particular, why do Member States choose to go on
the record with votes against a winning proposal or, stranger still (within the
paradigm of consensus), abstain from a winning proposal. In the 2002 legislative data, 81 per cent of the acts were passed by consensus, down from 97 per
cent in 2000 but not significantly different from the 1994–2002 year average
(see Tables 1a and 1b).
The data are incomplete in the decision-making universe in two ways: first,
there is an element of self-censorship in that the Commission does not send
legislation that it knows will not meet the consensus hurdle; and second, any
legislative act that looks as though it will fail will not be submitted to a vote,
but rather sent back to the Commission ‘for further study’. Thus, the data in
Tables 1 and 2 show only the successful legislative acts. It is an open question
what percentage of legislation these acts represents: although it would hypothetically be possible to get an estimate of how many legislative proposals are
sent back to the Commission for further study, the element of self-censorship
by the Commission (e.g., those proposals that would have the necessary votes
for QMV but not necessarily pass the consensus test) is difficult to quantify,
and may change from Commission to Commission.
Tables 2a and 2b break down the votes against and abstentions in legislative proposals by country.2 Some have noted that the role of abstentions is different for QMV than for unanimous decisions. Under consensus, it may be
easier to pass legislation than under QMV if there are significant abstentions
(Sherrington 2000: 65). This may be part of the explanation of the question
about why consensus remains the dominant decision-making method in the
Council, but it does not explain why a specific Member State may abstain from
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
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2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
Average
Total abstentions
30
25
Total votes against
28
27
12
9
34
17
14
14
29
20
22
30
60
56
55
62
37
Total legislative acts w/dissent*
37
31
42
5
30
56
48
44
76
65
44
Total legislative acts
194
187
191
199
219
218
229
344
261
227
Legislative acts passed by consensus
157
156
186
169
163
170
185
268
196
183
81
83
97
85
74
78
81
78
75
81
Consensus legislation (%)
* This is not the sum of abstentions and votes because some legislative acts have both abstentions and votes against.
Source: General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union: DG F III: Information, Transparency, Public Relations.
dorothee heisenberg
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
Table 1a. Consensus as dominant pattern in legislative acts
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the institution of ‘consensus’ in the european union
Table 1b. Legislative acts, 2002
Formal rules
Unanimity rule (29%)
Total acts
Dissented
% Dissented
% Consensus
57
4
7
93
QMV rule (71%)
137
33
24
76
Total (100%)
194
37
19
81
a consensus decision. Moreover, it is rare to see multiple countries abstaining
from a QMV vote (in 2002, only two QMV votes had more than one country
abstaining), thus it is clearly not the main reason for abstentions.
The Treaty of Rome deliberately attempted to compensate for the power
asymmetries associated with country and population size and therefore overweighted the representation of small counties in the EU’s decision-making
forums, including the Council. In so doing, the EU has created one of the most
malapportioned legislative chambers in the world in comparison to other
federalist systems, and each enlargement compounds that malapportionment
(Rodden 2001).
It may be that abstentions and votes against legislative proposals are a
measure of ‘voice’ (Hirschman 1970) in the EU’s agenda: a permanent record
of the dissent from the dominant direction the legislation takes. Establishing
a minority vote against a legislative act is thus a stronger version of voice, but
with similar consequences. These responses should be viewed as signaling
devices to the other Member States to alert them to the strongly held alternative preferences. The institution of publishing dissents exists in the United
States in the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. In both cases, the underlying logic is to signal the strength of preferences and reasoning in order to allow others (observers and colleagues) to
gauge the trajectory of the institution in the future. As one Supreme Court
Justice observed:
Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘my colleagues are
wrong and I would do it this way’. The greatest dissents do become court
opinions, and gradually, over time, their views become the dominant view.
So that’s the dissenter’s hope, that they are writing not for today, but for
tomorrow. (Ginsburg 2002)
Abstentions are strongly correlated with size (correlation coefficient of
0.80) and votes against are moderately correlated with population per vote in
the Council (0.68) (Table 3). Thus, Germany has a much higher propensity to
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
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Country
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
Total
% of
abstentions
% of contested
legislative acts
Germany
3
5
0
1
7
2
4
22
15.60
8.76
France
6
3
0
0
2
3
1
15
10.64
5.98
Italy
0
3
2
1
5
1
1
13
9.22
5.18
Spain
1
2
0
2
7
1
0
13
9.22
5.18
Portugal
3
1
0
1
4
2
2
13
9.22
5.18
United Kingdom
4
2
1
3
0
3
0
13
9.22
5.18
Belgium
1
1
5
0
3
1
1
12
8.51
4.78
Denmark
4
1
2
0
1
1
0
9
6.38
3.59
Luxembourg
1
2
0
0
2
1
2
8
5.67
3.19
Netherlands
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
7
4.96
2.79
Austria
0
4
0
0
0
1
1
6
4.26
2.39
Sweden
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
3.55
1.99
Greece
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
2
1.42
0.80
Finland
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
2
1.42
0.80
Ireland
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0.71
0.40
Total abstentions
30
25
12
9
34
17
14
141
Number of legislative acts
194
187
191
199
219
218
229
1,437
Number of legislative acts
with abstentions or
votes against
37
(19%)
31
(17%)
5
(3%)
30
(15%)
56
(26%)
48
(22%)
44
(19%)
251
(17%)
Acts passed by consensus
81%
83%
97%
85%
74%
78%
81%
83%
Source: General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union: DG F III: Information, Transparency, Public Relations.
dorothee heisenberg
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
Table 2a. Council voting in historical perspective: Abstentions
Table 2b. Council voting in historical perspective: Votes against
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
Total
% of votes
against
% of contested
legislative acts
Germany
2
3
4
2
11
9
14
45
16.19
17.93
Italy
2
2
1
8
8
6
6
33
11.87
13.15
Netherlands
5
1
2
4
12
2
2
28
10.07
11.16
2
3
3
4
7
6
2
27
9.71
10.76
Sweden
6
4
2
0
3
7
4
26
9.35
10.36
United Kingdom
1
2
2
0
2
7
7
21
7.55
8.37
France
0
3
1
3
3
3
3
16
5.76
6.37
Greece
2
1
3
1
2
4
2
15
5.40
5.98
Belgium
0
2
1
2
4
0
5
14
5.04
5.58
Austria
1
1
2
1
3
2
2
12
4.32
4.78
Spain
1
3
0
1
1
2
4
12
4.32
4.78
Ireland
2
1
0
1
2
1
2
9
3.24
3.59
Finland
2
1
1
0
0
4
1
9
3.24
3.59
Portugal
1
0
0
1
2
2
1
7
2.52
2.79
Luxembourg
1
0
0
2
0
1
0
4
1.44
1.59
Total votes against
28
27
22
30
60
56
55
278
Number of legislative acts
194
187
191
199
219
218
229
1,437
Number of legislative acts
with abstentions or
votes against
37
(19%)
31
(17%)
30
(15%)
56
(26%)
48
(22%)
44
(19%)
5
(3%)
251
(17%)
Source: General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union: DG F III: Information, Transparency, Public Relations.
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© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
Denmark
the institution of ‘consensus’ in the european union
Country
76
Country
Vote against as
% of contested
votes
Abstentions as
% of contested
votes
Germany
Years
in EU
Population
(millions)
Pre-Nice
population per
Council vote
GDP per
capita
Net contribution
to EU budget
per capita
164.6
17.93
8.76
45
82.0
8,200
103.3
United Kingdom
8.37
5.18
29
59.2
5,920
101.5
80.7
France
6.37
5.98
45
59.0
5,900
102.8
29.6
13.15
5.18
45
57.6
5,760
103.0
10.7
-184.0
Italy
Spain
4.78
5.18
16
39.4
4,925
84.0
11.16
2.79
45
15.8
3,160
114.8
129.7
Greece
5.98
0.80
21
10.5
2,100
64.7
-333.0
Belgium
5.58
4.78
45
10.2
2,040
108.7
30.6
Netherlands
Portugal
2.79
5.18
16
10.0
2,000
69.1
-241.8
Sweden
10.36
1.99
8
8.9
2,225
102.3
105.5
Austria
4.78
2.39
8
8.1
2,025
110.8
112.9
10.76
3.59
29
5.3
1,767
114.8
-58.6
Denmark
Finland
3.59
0.80
8
5.2
1,733
104.0
32.3
Ireland
3.59
0.40
29
3.7
1,233
117.8
-526.8
Luxembourg
1.59
3.19
45
0.4
200
191.1
110.6
Correlations:
Votes against
0.37
0.63
0.68
-0.14
0.43
Abstentions
0.50
0.80
0.79
-0.09
0.40
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© European Consortium for Political Research 2005
Table 3. Contested legislative acts
the institution of ‘consensus’ in the european union
77
vote against legislative proposals than the other Member States. To put the
‘size matters’ argument into perspective, correlations to other variables corresponding to other explanations were done. There is no correlation between
abstentions or votes against and GDP per capita (-0.09 and -0.14, respectively). It is not the case that rich countries (or poor countries) vote against
or abstain more often. And there is only a very weak correlation between
membership years of the EU and abstentions or votes against (0.50 and 0.37,
respectively), showing that it is not the case that newer members are more
likely to keep the consensus, while older members feel freer to break the consensus. Nor are net payers more likely to dissent: here the correlation is 0.43
and 0.40 for votes against and abstentions.
Thus one possible interpretation of the data on contested legislative acts
in Table 3 is that these are countries that are sufficiently concerned about the
direction of the legislative agenda of the EU to vote against (and be in the
minority) or abstain from the vote. Put differently, these are indications of
Member States with strong preferences and ones who want to record their differences with the majority. Seen in this light, it is perhaps not surprising that
the large Member States are more likely to vote against or abstain from a
legislative act than the smaller ones. While we would expect, ceteris paribus,
abstentions and votes against legislative acts to be evenly distributed amongst
Member States, or perhaps to have the smallest members vote against the
tyranny of the largest, in fact it is the smallest members that hardly ever vote
against or abstain: between them, the five largest Member States account for
46 per cent of the votes against and 54 per cent of the abstentions. Thus, one
could construe the ‘propensity to contest a vote’ as a measure of voice in the
future direction of the EU.
The fact that there are differential rates of abstentions and votes against
suggests either that large Member States believe their positions are more
strongly held, or that, because of their size, smaller countries do not have pretensions that they have a voice in the EU. This latter explanation is consistent
with Mattila and Lane’s (2001: 44) conclusion that small countries ‘vote against
the majority only in cases that are very salient to them and quietly accept the
majority decisions in less important cases, despite the fact that the majority
decision deviates from their original goals’.
Another way to understand abstentions and votes against is to examine the
proposals that get voted against or abstained from. Appendix A lists all 37 of
the 194 legislative acts that were not decided by consensus in 2002. Several
observations can be made: half (18) of the contested legislative acts relate to
agriculture or fisheries policies. This fact confirms several empirical accounts
that voting is often the last resort when time is of the essence, and when money
and agricultural subsidies are at stake. Often it is the large countries (and net
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dorothee heisenberg
payers) that contest the continuation of subsidies for small Member States
(e.g., to Portuguese pig farmers or Greek cotton growers).
Second, three of the 37 cases relate to state aid. The EU’s competition
policy on state aid to domestic interests has been more strongly enforced
(Thomas 2000), and the Council is called upon to extend or approve special
exemptions from the prohibition to give assistance or to extend it beyond the
original program years. Clearly, granting national aid to road transport undertakings or the coal industry will be more controversial because they involve a
step away from the single market and money to competing industries. In fact,
the legislative act that came closest to failing was the decision to create a temporary defensive mechanism to shipbuilding, which had Denmark, Sweden,
Finland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom voting against it, thereby
only just getting the necessary 62 votes to pass. Finally, there were differences
about the EU’s research funds and programs, which also had financial implications. Thus, in 2002, almost three-quarters of the contested decisions were
relating to subsidies and agriculture/fisheries policies – the kind of ‘bread and
butter’ issues for narrow and well-organized constituencies.
With respect to the remaining ten items, sometimes it is possible to guess
why a particular state voted against a proposal (e.g., Germany abstaining from
a decision on nuclear research and training activities without a statement in
the record), and sometimes the states will give strong and elaborate justifications for their vote against (e.g., Spain voting against the organization of the
working time of mobile road-transport drivers: ‘the Directive causes more
difficulties for Spain than for other Member States because of the scale of
the problem posed by this group’ (Summary of Council Acts, February 2002,
p. 11)).
Perhaps the most striking thing about the 37 non-consensus acts is that they
do not include major political changes or new programs, but rather reflect a
shoring up of existing programs and benefits. Exceptions to this generalization include a Directive on a common regulatory framework for electronic
communications networks and services (from which Portugal abstained
without comment) and the Directive on processing personal data and the
protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (which
Luxembourg voted against), but by and large the list is unremarkable in terms
of moving integration forward or not. On major issues, consensus is the
method – for example, in the establishment of the European Food Safety
Authority, the establishment of a facility providing medium-term financial
assistance for Member States’ balances of payments or the creation of Community incentive measures in the field of employment. On more parochial
decisions such as whether to allow Greece to continue to subsidize its cotton
farmers, dissent is evident.
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Informal norm of consensus poses problems for formal models of the
EU
The continuing use of consensus decision-making instead of the formal procedures in the Council undermines the fundamental assumptions in the rational institutionalist (RI) as well as the power index models. Each of these
literatures is critiqued below in light of the evidence of informal decisionmaking being the dominant mode in the Council. These diverse literatures are
grouped together here because the hallmark of both literatures is the acceptance of the formal process of decision-making as an adequate input into the
models of behavior.
Rational institutionalist models
As (RI) models become more and more accepted in the EU literature, it is
important to engage them in critical debate about their underlying assumptions and relation to empirically verified reality (Green & Shapiro 1994). Here,
my critique is similar to Corbett’s (2000, 2001) contention that the RI scholars do not seem to understand the actual dynamics of EU decision-making
because they look only at the formal institutions. By showing how the strategic options appeared to the MEPs, Corbett takes issue with Garrett and
Tsebelis’s (2000) counter-intuitive claim that the cooperation procedure was
actually better for the European Parliament than the co-decision procedure.
The larger critique, however, of how closely Garrett and Tsebelis’s spatial
model corresponds to empirical reality as a general matter is not elaborated
by Corbett, although it deserves to be.
It should also be emphasized here that consensus is not equivalent to unanimity. The key difference between consensus and qualified majority voting is
that under consensus the minority needs to be appeased in some way, although
not completely. It is possible that agreement on one piece of legislation then
puts into play another, unrelated one. ‘A decision on one particular proposal
may force a decision on another proposal, due to package deals or tactical
maneuvering by a member state or the Presidency’ (Sherrington 2000: 67).
From the perspective of RI theories, however, this appeasement of the minority is a violation of the fundamental assumption of their spatial model.
A short review of the RI literature suffices to introduce the problematic
portions of the argument as they relate to consensus. Tsebelis (1994), Garrett
and Tsebelis (1996, 2000, 2001a, 2001b), and Tsebelis and Yataganas (2002)
conceived of a formal model of EU decision-making that took many of its precepts and assumptions from a well-developed (though no less controversial)
literature on formal modeling of American politics. They assume that any EU
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legislative proposal can be classified on a linear scale from ‘less integration to
more integration’. The Council members are likewise arrayed on a linear scale
from preferring the status quo to preferring more integration (note that due
to the requirements of Garrett and Tsebelis’s spatial model, it is impossible to
model a scenario in which a country prefers less integration than the status
quo, a questionable assumption in light of, e.g., the United Kingdom’s public
statements).
Perhaps the biggest embedded assumption of EU spatial models is that
decision-making in the Council is concerned more with interinstitutional
dynamics than with the substance of the proposal at hand. The claim by the
rational institutionalists is that a state in a minority position in the Council,
without the ability to block the proposal, will be strategically thinking of presenting a unified front vis-à-vis the other institutions rather than showing the
true distribution of preferences in the Council by voting.
Even in its own terms, RI theory generates some strange strategic motivations. The institutional solidarity implied by the lack of voting (in the argument of the RI theory) implies that the minority Council member would prefer
a proposal to which it is opposed to pass than to weaken the resoluteness of
the Council relative to the EP. Bearing in mind that a state in the minority is
more likely to kill the legislation to which it is opposed if there is the appearance of less unity in the Council (thus sending signals to the EP as to what the
objections might be), the model implies that intrainstitutional dynamics always
trump the substance of the proposals. Yet the substance of the proposals, in
particular the degree of further integration implied by the proposals, is what
drives their model to begin with.
The problem from an empirical point of view is that there is no evidence
whatsoever that strategic institutional interaction is more important to the
members of the Council. Insider accounts (Bostock 2002; Moberg 2002;
Westlake 1995) as well as case study and sociological methods (Sherrington
2000; Hayes-Renshaw & Wallace 1995; Lewis 1998, 2000) do not reveal the
emphasis on the EP’s reaction that these spatial models predict. On the
contrary, these empirical accounts of the Council’s work show a genuine
commitment on the part of the Presidency to generate consensus by delay,
side payments and issue-linkage. As a former Coreper member describes it:
The behaviour of members of Coreper during co-decision reflects the
committee’s usual codes of behaviour. In particular, there is a powerful
preference for accommodating the difficulties of Member States rather
than voting dissidents down. At the same time, the possibility that, in the
last resort, a vote can be called acts as an incentive for any Member State
in a minority position to display some flexibility. (Bostock 2002: 220)
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Power index models
Power index models are increasingly en vogue with respect to the EU decision-making processes because there have been so many changes to decisionmaking rules that can all be modeled. Moreover, the addition to the EU of
ten new members presents an opportunity to model the changes (Leech 2002;
Laruelle & Valenciano 2002; Raunio & Wiberg 1998). At base, however, these
models all rest on the fundamental assumptions that the formal, EU Treatyprescribed system of voting is the dominant method of decision-making. As
Lane and Maeland (2000: 35; emphasis added) write:
Given a set of players . . . collective choice in a political assembly can be
modeled as a simple game, (a voting game), where subsets . . . of players
form winning coalitions (or win sets). These winning coalitions are
assigned the total value of the game, . . . while the losing coalitions get
nothing.
Once again, the empirical evidence from people who have participated or
observed the Council’s decision-making process directly contradicts these
assumptions. The power indices literature (Raunio & Wiberg 1998; Hosli 1993,
1995; Brams & Affuso 1985; Brams 1985; Shapley & Shubik 1954) rests on the
fundamental assumption of the Banzhaf power calculations (Banzhaf 1965)
– namely that a country’s power is a function of its necessity in the winning
coalitions. A country that is necessary in 8 out of 10 hypothetical winning
coalitions is more powerful than a country that is only necessary in 4 out of
10 winning coalitions. Yet, under consensus decision-making, losers are compensated to some degree and cannot necessarily simply be outvoted and
ignored. Thus, any mathematical exercise in coalition counting needs to come
to terms with this reality.
With both of these literatures resting on formal modeling techniques, it may
be time to admit that formal modeling of informal processes is not appropriate to analyze the complex and multifaceted workings of the EU. To the extent
that it is ever possible to falsify social science research, these formal analyses
should have been rejected as more and more information about the Council
decision-making process and data supporting these accounts were revealed.
Consensus, efficient decision-making and democratic accountability
If the formal process is rarely used, what are the implications of using the
informal process? Arguably, consensus decision-making is the answer to many
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of the inherent contradictions of the Monnet method of integration: it facilitates bargaining, it compensates losers, it keeps the ‘nationalistic’ out of the
public’s eye, and it avoids the overweighting of the small countries’ parochial
interests that could destabilize the EU while avoiding the tyranny of the large
countries. There are, however, potentially serious deleterious consequences to
the practice of consensus, and this section briefly examines them.
The first concern speaks to the question of efficient decision-making.
Although the bargaining within the existing range of issues is efficient, that
range is artificially truncated and thus there is only a subset of EU issues that
can be decided in this fashion. Any of the serious issues that would significantly change the workings of the EU (and because of the uncertainty of the
future construction, bargains would be difficult to make) are simply deferred
by the inability to reach consensus. Thus, to the extent that the EU faces new
challenges that create the need to act despite uncertainty about the outcomes,
consensus in the Council will prevent the timely resolution of these issues. It
is this element of the EU’s future to which Romano Prodi referred when he
said:
From a much broader standpoint, we must carry through to completion
the process whereby consensus is replaced by voting, the normal procedure in a democratic system. What we must do is evolve towards a system
of decision-making that is based on voting, a system that is both effective and can be understood by everyone. . . . [W]e must come to embrace
a majority voting culture, in which decisions reflect the will of the largest
number but apply equally to each and everyone. All too often, we aim
for consensus even when there is none to be found, and progress grinds
to a halt. To overcome reservations in some quarters, there is only one
solution: to put the matter to the vote. (Prodi 2001)
Prodi also obliquely refers to the lack of democratic accountability of
community decision-making. He would like a system that is ‘understood by
everyone’ and (reading between the lines) more democratically legitimate.
Paradoxically, the main justification to have consensual decision-making
rather than hard voting has always been to solidify the legitimacy of the EU
in the eyes of its citizens by not making the losers apparent. In national domestic contexts, consensual decision-making has been very successful in shoring
up support for political decisions despite large internal differences (Lijphart
1999). The causal mechanism, however, is not because of the opacity of the
process or lack of information about winners and losers. Anderson and
Guillory (1997), building on the concept of Lijphart’s consensual-majoritarian
typology, showed that consensual democratic institutions differentially and
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systematically affect citizen satisfaction with the way democracy works.
Specifically, ‘losers in systems that are more consensual display higher levels
of satisfaction with the way democracy works than do losers in systems with
majoritarian characteristics’ (Anderson & Guillory 1997: 66). In Anderson and
Guillory’s theoretical perspective, however, this additional satisfaction from
consensual decision-making is due to mechanisms for procedural justice and
opportunities for input into the decisions made by government. The perception that the minority can have an impact on legislation is the primary legitimation mechanism. This is not a whitewashing of political conflicts in a
consensus. Thus, while the label ‘consensus’ is used to describe both systems,
the political legitimacy that attaches to the domestic consensual systems is
mostly absent in the EU context due to a lack of information about the process
of making conflictual decisions. (Bogaards & Crepaz (2002: 367) indicate
that even national consociational politics have been subject to democratic
critiques.)
It may be that a culture of making decisions by consensus rather than QMV
accords greater power to the EU’s large states at the expense of the small
states. Steinberg (2002: 360) argues that invisible weighting is the hallmark of
the GATT/WTO decision-making, and that ‘sovereign equality rules [consensus] are more likely than weighted voting to confer legitimacy on . . .
outcomes’. Moreover, the ‘legitimizing effect of sovereign equality rules on
outcomes may be particularly pronounced for domestic audiences, as opposed
to . . . negotiators who have witnessed invisible weighting first-hand’
(Steinberg 2002: 360). Thus, while they can demand compensation for their
minority position, the rights of small Member States are less protected
under a system of consensus decision-making than in voting. However, the
decision-making process obscures this reality to the public.
At the Council level, decision-making has been shrouded in secrecy in
order to avoid nationalist characterizations of the voting. Although Member
States can chose to make public their loser status (abstentions and votes
against), there is no EU-wide obligation to do so. Some of the smaller states
(e.g., the Netherlands) must give their national parliaments information about
the votes they have cast in the Council, but again, this is a domestic practice
that is not obligatory in all states.
The practice of allowing democratically elected decision-makers to reach
secret deals with their counterparts that are binding on their citizens is quite
rare internationally. In most domestic and international negotiation scenarios,
the outcomes of the negotiations are known, as are the individual decisionmakers’ preferences and roles in that outcome. Indeed, often it is the democratic national parliaments that must approve the negotiation mandate of
the decision-maker, either before hand (‘fast track authority’) or afterward
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(ratification). Moreover, an essential requirement of democratic accountability is the availability of information on the decision-maker’s bargains, to allow
the voter the opportunity to censor the decision-maker at the ballot box.
Thus, both in domestic and international scenarios, consensus thwarts many
of the essential elements of democratic decision-making. Steinberg (2002: 342)
calls consensus decision-making (in the GATT/WTO context) ‘organized
hypocrisy’ because the informal norms make it possible to ‘formulate legislative packages that favor the interests of powerful states, yet can be accepted
by all participating states and [can be] generally considered legitimate by
them’.
Similarly, Gruber’s (2001) analysis of why states join supranational institutions when they are not perceived to be superior to the status quo shows that
the fear of being outside the supranational institution (in this case, the consensus that is developing) leads states to decisions that are not necessarily
pareto-optimal. Moreover, in a skillfully handled Council, the chair may attenuate existing information asymmetries and obtain a vote in favor of a legislative act even if a blocking minority existed. In the Council, a decision to go
along with the Council’s consensus despite reservations must not even be justified to the voters. It is not difficult to see why any models of democratic
process that rest on a notion of agent control break down in the context of
the Council.
In the final analysis, the institution of consensus in the EU is a mixed bag:
on the one hand it has created the tremendous integration of the past 40 years,
but on the other, it holds the EU back from a new level of international governance. It has proved extremely difficult to eradicate since its effects are seen
as benign, and it remains to be seen whether anything but a radical change in
the formal institutions and informal norms will alter that. It is a debatable
question whether that would be desirable.
Appendix A: Legislative acts with abstentions or votes against (2002)3
QMV rules with abstentions:
Council Decision amending Decision 97/413/EC concerning the objectives and
detailed rules for restructuring the Community fisheries sector for the
period from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2001 with a view to achieving
a balance on a sustainable basis between resources and their exploitation.
QMV. France abstained.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 2792/1999 laying down the detailed
rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the
fisheries sector. QMV. France abstained.
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Directive of the EP and the Council on public access to environmental
information and repealing Council Directive 90/313/EEC. QMV. France
abstained.
Regulation of the EP and the Council on the prolongation of the ECSC steel
statistics system after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty. QMV. France
abstained.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 1255/96 temporarily suspending the
autonomous common customs tariff duties on certain industrial, agricultural and fishery products. QMV. France abstained.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 2505/96 opening and providing for
the administration of autonomous Community tariff quotas for certain
agricultural and industrial products. QMV. France abstained.
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services
(Framework Directive). QMV. Portugal abstained.
Directive of the EP and of the Council on undesirable substances in animal
feed. QMV. Portugal abstained.
Regulation of the EP and the Council concerning the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities in, and for the
dissemination of research results for, the implementation of the European
Community Sixth Framework Programme (2002–2006). QMV. Portugal
abstained.
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reduction of
the level of pollutant emissions from two- and three-wheel motor vehicles
and amending Directive 97/24/EC. QMV. United Kingdom abstained.
Decision of the EP and the Council adopting an action programme for
customs in the Community. QMV. United Kingdom abstained.
Council Regulation extending the financing of quality and marketing improvement plans for certain nuts and locust beans approved under title IIa of
Regulation 1035/72 and proving for a specific aid for hazelnuts. QMV.
Sweden abstained.
Directive of the EP and of the Council on the establishment of rules and procedures with regard to the introduction of noise-related operating restrictions at Community airports. QMV. Belgium abstained.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 1868/94 establishing a quota system
in relation to the production of potato starch. QMV. Finland abstained.
Directive of the EP and the Council concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services and amending Council Directives 90/619/EEC,
97/7/EC and 98/27/EC. QMV. Luxembourg abstained.
Council Regulation on State aid to the coal industry. QMV. Denmark and
Sweden abstained.
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dorothee heisenberg
Decision of the EP and the Council amending Council Decision 96/411/EC on
improving Community agricultural statistics. QMV. Germany and Sweden
abstained.
QMV rules with votes against:
Council Decision authorizing the Government of Portugal to grant aid to
Portuguese pig farmers who were beneficiaries of the measures granted in
1994 and 1998. QMV. The Netherlands voted against.
Directive of the EP and of the Council amending Directive 97/67/EC with
regard to the further opening to competition of Community postal services.
QMV. The Netherlands voted against.
Directive of the EP and of the Council amending for the twentieth time
Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and
use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (short-chain chlorinated paraffins). QMV. The Netherlands voted against.
Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological
development and demonstration: ‘integrating and strengthening the
European Research Area’ (2002–2006). QMV. Italy voted against.
Council Regulation rectifying Regulation 2200/96 relative to the starting date
of the transitional period for the recognition of producer organizations.
QMV. Italy voted against.
Decision of the EP and of the Council concerning the sixth framework programme of the EC for research, technological development and demonstration activities, contributing to the creation of the European research
area and to innovation (2002–2006). QMV. Austria voted against.
Council Regulation amending the regulation on the common organization of
the market in seeds and fixing the aid granted in the seeds sector for the
2002–2004 marketing years. QMV. Sweden voted against.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 3950/92 establishing an additional
levy in the milk and milk products sector. QMV. Portugal voted against.
Council Regulation amending Regulation 2555/2001 fixing for 2002 the fishing
opportunities and associated conditions for certain fish stocks and groups
of fish stocks, applicable in Community waters and, for Community vessels,
in waters where limitations in catch are required. QMV. Greece voted
against.
Directive of the EP and the Council concerning the processing of personal
data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector.
QMV. Luxembourg voted against.
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down health
rules concerning animal by-products not intended for human consumption.
QMV. The Netherlands and Sweden voted against.
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Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. QMV. Germany and Sweden voted
against.
Council Regulation fixing for 2003 the fishing opportunities and associated
condition for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks, applicable in
Community waters and, for Community vessels, in waters where catch
limitations are required. QMV. Germany and Sweden voted against.
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the organization
of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities. QMV. Spain, Finland and Greece voted against.
Council Regulation concerning a temporary defensive mechanism to shipbuilding. QMV. Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the
United Kingdom voted against.
QMV rules with abstentions and votes against:
Council Regulation fixing the premiums and guarantee thresholds for leaf
tobacco by variety group and Member State for the 2002–2004 harvests
and amending Regulation 2075/92. QMV. United Kingdom abstained, and
Denmark and Sweden voted against.
Unanimity rules with abstentions:
Council Decision on the granting of exceptional national aid by the
Government of the French Republic for the distillation of certain wine
sector products. Unanimity. Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands and
the United Kingdom abstained.
Council Decision on the granting of national aid by the Kingdom of the
Netherlands, the Italian Republic and the French Government for road
transport undertakings. Unanimity. Denmark abstained.
Council Decision concerning the sixth framework programme of EURATOM
for nuclear research and training activities, also contributing to the creation
of the European Research Area (2002–2006). Unanimity. Germany
abstained.
Council Decision authorising the Greek Government to grant aid to cotton
growers in Greece. Unanimity. Sweden, Denmark and Germany abstained.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Maciej Golubiewski and David Landes for
their valuable research assistance, and two anonymous reviewers for their
insightful comments. All errors and omissions remain mine alone. An earlier
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dorothee heisenberg
version of this article appeared as a BMW Center for German and European
Studies, Georgetown University, Working Paper (No. 4-03, June 2003).
Notes
1. Although the Franco-German disputes at Nice in December 2000 were the most recent
example of this phenomenon, by far the most acrimonious negotiations were those before
the European Free Trade Association accessions in 1994, when Spain and the United
Kingdom threatened to veto the enlargement because of the calculations of their
weighted votes in the total Council votes.
2. The data available are only on ‘definitive legislative acts’ (i.e., acts adopted after the
second reading by the EP). The transparency the General Secretariat chooses to omit
so-called ‘other acts’ from its publicly available statistics. These can be any nonlegislative – but nevertheless political – acts, including anti-dumping duties and regulations. Occasionally a Member State may make its vote public, as the Netherlands did, for
example, with a Council resolution to impose anti-dumping duties on zinc oxide from
China in February 2002.
3. Source: Monthly Summary of Council Acts, January–December 2002. Available online
at: http://register.consilium.eu.int/scripts/isoregisterDir/WebDriver.exe?MIval=acts&key
= R E G I S T E R & i i _ P U B L I C _ D O C = % 3 E 0 & s r m = 2 5 & m d = 1 0 0 & s s f = DAT E _
DOCUMENT+DESC&MIlang=EN&fc=REGAISEN&ff_COTE_MATIERE_PRIM=
public&ff_TITRE=2002.
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Address for correspondence: Dorothee Heisenberg, School for Advanced International
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