The EU Stagnates: 15 years without élan

If we asked what the most recent achievements of the European Union were, many would answer the euro and the accession of formerly communist countries. But if we looked more closely, it would emerge that these objectives were due to decisions taken in the early 1990s: the Single Currency dates back to the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, while enlargement was launched in Copenhagen in 1993. What's happened since then? The impression is: not terribly much. The reason? European institutions have a serious problem of inefficiency in decision-making and suffer from not being democratic enough.
Inefficiency derives from the low probability of arriving at forming winning coalitions. The central institution of the European legislative process is the Council of Ministers. In the Council, decisions are made if they obtain a qualified majority (circa 72%), with weighted votes (proportionately, smaller countries count more). With the shift from EU15 to EU27, the probability of achieving a winning coalition decreased from an already low 8% to the current 2%: really too little to hope for an ambitious and decisive Europe. The problem is that the Council of Ministers' majority threshold is too high. The 2% figure derives from a bad deal signed in Nice in the year 2000, when existing members refused to lower the threshold in response to the coming accession of Central and Eastern European countries. Fears about losing sovereignty prevailed. Today any majority decision requires the yes vote of too many countries. So decisions are modest and lousy compromises prevail. The second problem is due to a failure in democratic representation. The current system gives to much clout to medium and small countries. Today Luxembourg has 1/8^th of the power of Germany in the Council, but its population is 1/180^th. This means that a German voter counts 23 times less than a Luxemburger. This problem was exacerbated by enlargement, because the 12 new members are mostly small- or medium-sized. Their share of votes is 31% of the total, while their population share is 22%. So the Union today staggers and stagnates, because it's incapable of making strong decisions and is subject to the blocking power of smaller countries. The old axes of power that had ensured progress in European integration over the past decades have significantly weakened. So it's not astonishing that the recent political dynamic has become much more "intergovernmental", with an excessive role being played by the European Council, where the heads of state and government decide by consensus, and so are subject to the whims of the eurosceptic of the day. A step ahead is the Treaty of Lisbon, which introduces a new voting mechanism and the new position of President of the EU. Efficiency in decision-making will be significantly improved (from 2 to 14%), as well as its democratic representation (Eastern countries now have same power as their population share). The President would act as agenda-setter, a role that is much needed in today's much vaster European Union.