Qualified majority voting

What is qualified majority voting?

In the council, ministers may vote on qualified majority. This means that the votes of ministers representing member states are given a weighting. In other words, each county is given a number of votes.

In the current system where there are 15 member states, the total number of votes is 87. For a decision to be adopted on a proposal from the Commission, it requires 62 votes under qualified majority procedure.

When the council of ministers decides on its own powers, the qualified majority still remains 62 votes but it will also require that these 62 votes are cast by at least 10 member states (in an a EU of 15).