... proposals concern the qualified majority voting system, the composition of the European Commission, the creation of the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, citizenship and the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union. Qualified majority voting Article 24 states that "majority shall consist of the majority of Member States, representing at least three fifths of the population of the Union." (The European Convention, 2003). This new qualified majority voting system replaces the unclear and opaque one established by the Treaty of Nice. The old one gave every country a weighted vote, making Britain, France, Germany and Italy all the same. That system favoured Spain and Poland, two medium-sized countries, as it gave them almost as many votes as the biggest countries; they do not want to loose that advantage (A simpler Europe, 2003). Moreover, the use of qualified majority voting is extended to 22 new fields, which has led ...

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