Influence of the Treaty of Lisbon on Poland’s strength in the Council of the European Union

Abstract

Changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon resulted in a substantial
shift of vote strength between the member states of the Council of the
European Union. It also had great influence on the position of Poland and
its bargaining power in this institution. Although the Treaty modified only
the formal determinants of strength, it changed the dynamics of the decisionmaking
process as well as the importance of the European Commission,
the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in this
process. The article highlights the new way of weighing votes in the Council
of the EU, the increase in the scope of decisions taken by qualified majority
and the introduction of new competences clauses, which had impact on the
position of Poland in this institution. It shows a substantive shift of vote
strength towards the four biggest member states at the expense of countries
with smaller population. As a result, it will be more difficult for Poland to
build its bargaining power based on formal-legal factors. Thus, the skills in
multi-level and parallel negotiations, presenting own interests, reliable and
consistent arguments, and promotion of common initiatives will become more
important. The work makes a wide use of multiplayer voting games, especially
mathematical indexes of strength in order to demonstrate its flow between the
members of the Council of the EU. The author also uses a formal-dogmatic
method in order to analyse the contents of the source materials, including
mainly the primary legal acts. The mathematical indexes of strength, for the
needs of the analysis presented in the article, were calculated with the use of
the program POWERGEN 1.0.