Double majority

The term refers to a double majority voting system, in which are necessary for decision- majority votes according to two different criteria. This form of qualified majority voting is applied in Switzerland and will apply from 2014 for majority voting in the Council of the European Union. Characteristic in both cases is that both a majority of voters and a majority of the Community's member states is necessary for a decision.

• 2.1 majority decisions
• 2.2 Qualified majority

Switzerland

A constitutional amendment at the federal level in Switzerland may enter into force only if you agree in a referendum, both the majority of voters ( more people ) as well as the majority of the cantons of the Swiss Confederation ( called cantons ).

Member state votes

For the cantons 20 full cantons are counted with one vote each, the six half-cantons, each with half a vote. The cantons thus amounts to thirteen votes. In the 19th century, the cantons ( = objects ) were able to define themselves as their respective cantonal vote is determined. Today, a simple majority of voting citizens in the canton determines how the vote of a canton is considered. Since the two smallest cantons with full voice only less than 40,000 inhabitants count, the two largest but more than 900,000 residents, the greater impact of a citizen of the small cantons is problematized in part from the standpoint of electoral equality.

European Union

Majority decisions

The Council of the European Union (also called the Council of Ministers) basically decides by a simple majority of its members, with each state having one vote. Malta, Poland and Germany are legally equal despite their different size, population and economic power. From the principle of simple majority is waived if the primary law ( the EU Treaty and the FEU Treaty) is expressly provided otherwise. There are so far two ways: qualified majority and unanimity.

Qualified majority

After the Treaty of Lisbon is for a qualified majority in the Council of the European Union on the one hand requires that at least 55 percent of the Member States agree to a decision proposal, each country has one vote. Furthermore, the consenting Member States must total at least 65 percent of the EU population represent (Art. 238 TFEU).

This regulation shall enter into force, however, until 2014. Until then applies the existing rules under the Treaty of Nice, which, according to the case of votes by qualified majority, the votes of the Member States 'weighted'. The individual states have here 3-29 votes, the total number of votes is since the 2007 enlargement to 27 Member States in 345 votes. For a qualified majority vote, three conditions are necessary: ​​a simple majority of Member States, 73.9 percent of the total of 345 votes and 62 percent of the EU population.

The voting procedure with weighting of votes goes back to the early days of the European Communities. The number of votes held by a country is each roughly according to population, it has come into existence in detail through negotiations and therefore appears more or less arbitrary. Specifically, after the failure of the EU summit in Nice could only be prevented by a distribution of votes, which was difficult to justify a new voting procedure was sought at the EU Constitutional Convention, which should be easier to communicate to the people. For this purpose, the principle of double majority was elected, in which the population of a country was weighted more heavily. However, the less populous EU member states and in particular the beneficiaries under the Nice Treaty, each with 27 votes compared to their actual population countries, Spain and Poland rejected the new model from first what prevented the adoption of the EU Constitutional Treaty, the European Council of December 2003. During the next Intergovernmental Conference, the first rejection governments were convinced of the coordination mode of the double majority, especially after it had come by the Spanish general election, 2004 in this country for a change of government.

After the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, the 2007 newly elected Polish government came true once more to the demand for another voting procedure back and now called for the introduction of a weighting of votes in accordance with the square-root law of Lionel Penrose, the scientists had proposed in 2003 as an alternative. The determined with this weighted voting method each power index of the Member States should ensure consider ( with the constraint of a quorum of 62 percent of the vote ) to be only indirectly through the government in affecting ligand influence factor of the respective domestic population stronger by any EU citizen on the weighting of the respective government issued in a decision-making body of the EU votes has the same arithmetic voting strength ( impact strength ). Ultimately, the Polish government caved but again, so that the system of double majority was introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.