The Council of Ministers

This section gives an overview of the Council of Ministers, the EU’s main decision making body.

The EU Member States take it in turns to hold the Council Presidency for a six-month period. Every Council meeting is attended by one minister from each EU country.

Which ministers attend a meeting depends on which topic is on the agenda: foreign affairs, agriculture, industry, transport, the environment, and so on.

The Council has legislative power, which it shares with the European Parliament under the ‘co-decision procedure’. In addition to this, the Council and the Parliament share equal responsibility for adopting the EU budget. The Council also concludes international agreements that have been negotiated by the Commission.

According to the Treaties, the Council has to take its decisions either by a simple majority vote, a ‘qualified majority’ vote or unanimously, depending on the subject to be decided. The Council has to agree unanimously on important questions such as amending the Treaties, launching a new common policy or allowing a new country to join the Union.

Qualified majority voting (QMV)

In most other cases, qualified majority voting is used. This means that a Council decision is adopted if a specified minimum number of votes are cast in its favour. The number of votes allocated to each EU country roughly reflects the size of its population. Germany, France, Italy and the UK each have 29 votes out of a total 345. Malta, in contrast, has just 3 votes.

A minimum of 255 votes out of 345 (73.9 %) is required to reach a qualified majority. In addition, a majority of Member States (in some cases two thirds) must approve the decision, and any Member State may ask for confirmation that the votes cast in favour represent at least 62 % of the EU’s total population.

In accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, after 2014 Decisions in the Council of Ministers will need the support of 55% of Member States (currently 15 out of 27 EU countries) representing a minimum of 65% of the EU's population.

To make it impossible for a very small number of the most populous Member States to prevent a decision from being adopted, a blocking minority must comprise at least four Member States; otherwise, the qualified majority will be deemed to have been reached even if the population criterion is not met.