Supplementary Memorandum submitted by
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
When he appeared before the Committee last Tuesday,
the Foreign Secretary promised to provide the Committee with further
information in writing on two points that arose in discussion.
The first point, raised by Andrew Mackinlay
MP, concerned voting weights in the Council of Ministers. The
Foreign Secretary undertook to share with the Committee the texts
on this that were tabled in the Intergovernmental Conference and
discussed at the Amsterdam European Council last year. I enclose
two Presidency texts from the IGC. The first is taken from CONF/3888/97,
which was circulated by the Dutch Presidency on 24 April 1997.
The second is from CONF/4000/97, which was circulated immediately
before the European Council on 12 June. This was the text on the
table at Amsterdam. Both documents have previously been placed
in the Library of the House.
The second point concerned UK contributions
to the budget. Mr Rowlands asked for figures on our past, present
and future contributions. The latest figures are attached.
Mr Rowlands asked about the trend in our contribution.
I hope it is clear from the attached figures that our contribution
is not on a steeply rising path. As Mr Jones Parry explained to
the Committee, our net contribution fluctuates significantly from
year to year, for a number of reasons including exchange rate
movements. Although our 1998 contribution is significantly higher
than that for 1997, this is largely explained by such exceptional
factors. If members of the Committee would like more detail on
this, the Treasury recently published a full account in "European
Community Finances", the Statement on the 1998 EC budget
(Cm 3937, April 1998).
Beyond 1999 the level of our net contribution
will depend on the outcome of the current Agenda 2000 negotiations.
While enlargement will inevitably mean increases in net contributions
(or reductions in net receipts) for all current member states,
we will argue for continued budgetary rigour so as to ensure that
these increases are not excessive.
June 1998
PRESIDENCY NOTE, CONF/3888/97
Subject: Reweighting of votes in the Council
and the threshold for qualified majority voting
1. On the basis of previous discussions, notably
the discussion held in Noordwijk on 7 April 1997, and taking account
of the general agreement which exists on the need to ensure that
the future qualified majority will represent a minimum in terms
of population, the Presidency invites delegations to examine the
two possible alternatives for ensuring such representativeness
set out below.
A. A SYSTEM OF
DUAL MAJORITY
Variant A
The current weighted majority as set out in
Article 148(2) of the TEC including the maintaining of the threshold
at its current level (71.2 per cent) and the verification that
this majority represents at least 60 per cent of the total population
of the Union.
Variant B
A majority of the Member States (one country:
one vote) and the verification that this majority represents at
least 60 per cent of the total population of the Union.
B. THE REWEIGHTING
OF VOTES
IN THE
COUNCIL
Tables in Annex present two variants of a possible
reweighting of votes in a 15 Member State Union (see Table 1)
and in 26 Member State Union (see Table 2). Both variants:
— result in a minimum level of +/-
60 per cent of the total Union population;
— respect the current level of the
threshold for the qualified majority (71.2 per cent).
This reweighting of votes has been established
by allocating votes to Member States in a decreasing scale subject
to the size of population.
2. Should any adjustment be agreed, the alternative
for its entry into force would be:
— either upon the entry into force
of the Treaty;
— or only as and when future enlargement
takes place.
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