Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, The Copenhagen Voice, 31 March 2009

Small EU countries lose influence when decisions are made by a qualified majority voting system. They fare best in EU negotiations when decision-making is unanimous and when they must make their voices heard because of various interests.

Small European Union (EU) member states lose influence when decisions are made by a qualified majority voting system, new research shows. The small countries fare best in EU negotiations when there is unanimous decision-making and when they are really driven by domestic or other interests to make their voices heard.

Moreover, ‘soft’ factors that have not been considered very significant in small state success seem to play a role after all. These factors are broadly social and psychological in nature, and include interpersonal rapport, human relations, and personal qualities of trustworthiness, charisma and overall social skills.

These findings are based on a doctoral thesis, ‘Small States - Big Negotiations’, that Tiia Lehtonen, a researcher of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, recently defended at the European University Institute in Florence.

The study examined the impact of the decision-making rule on small state influence in EU Treaty negotiations.

A comparison was made between the treaty revision methods of Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) and the Convention on the Future of the EU, a novel method used in 2002-03 as an alternative way to negotiate treaty reforms.

This allowed Lehtonen to make a further distinction between the decision-making rules of unanimity (adopted in the IGCs) and restricted consensus (adopted in the Convention).

The study drew comparisons between four small member states: Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Ireland. Their real influence was traced through three substantial issues of institutional reform: the composition of the European Commission, the extension of qualified majority voting and the reform of the Council Presidency.

In addition, the analysis focused on both informal and formal levels of negotiation dynamics and different modes of interaction and communication.

Small states’ interests were best served in the EU when the unanimity decision-making rule was used, and the negotiations took place within the Intergovernmental Conferences.

In the IGC context, the issue was highly salient for the small state in question and its preferences were intensified as a result when the member state was bound by certain domestic constraints (such as a referendum).

In the Convention, the original institutional preferences of small states were not incorporated into the final treaty as widely as in the IGCs.