Editing Treaty of Nice (section)

==Provisions of the treaty==
The Nice Treaty was attacked by many people as a flawed compromise. [[Germany]] had demanded that its greater population be reflected in a higher vote weighting in the Council; this was opposed by [[France]], who insisted that the symbolic parity between France and Germany be maintained. The Commission had proposed to replace the old [[Voting in the Council of the European Union|weighted voting system]] with a double majority system which would require those voting in favour to represent a majority of both member states and population for a proposal to be approved.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Treaty of Nice: Actor Preferences, Bargaining And Institutional Choice |editor1-first=Finn |editor1-last=Laursen |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |year=2005 |place=Leiden |isbn=90-04-14820-5 |page=393}}</ref> This was also rejected by France for similar reasons. A compromise was reached, which provided for a double majority of Member States and votes cast, and in which a Member State could optionally request verification that the countries voting in favour represented a sufficient proportion of the EU's population.

{| style="font-size:87%; float:right; clear:both; padding:1em; margin:0; margin:1em; border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-color:gray; padding:1em"
|+ Voting weights in the [[Council of the European Union]] as decided in the Treaty of Nice, effective as of 1 November 2004:<ref>Article 12 of the 2003 Act of Accession ([http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2003:236:0033:0049:EN:PDF OJ L 236, 23 September 2003, p. 33]). The figures given in the Act of Accession were determined prior to the 2004 enlargement in a declaration attached to the Nice Treaty ([http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2001:080:0001:0087:EN:PDF OJ C 80, 10 March 2001, p 82]).</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=EU voting row explained |newspaper=British Broadcasting Corporation |date=24 March 2004 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3562405.stm |access-date=17 April 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Impact of Turkey's Membership on EU Voting |first1=Richard |last1=Baldwin |first2=Mika |last2=Widgrén |journal=CEPS Policy Brief |number=62 |publisher=Centre for European Policy Studies |date=February 2005 |page=11 |url=http://www.ceps.eu/files/book/1194.pdf |archive-date=2014-04-13 |access-date=2013-04-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413131909/http://www.ceps.eu/files/book/1194.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|- valign=top
| align=left | Country
| Voting<br />weight
| Pop.<br />(Mio.)
| Rel.<ref>The relative weight is a measure of how many Council votes a country has related to its population. In this instance, the German weight is taken to be 1.00 and as a reference to all others.</ref><br />weight
|-
| colspan=4 |<hr>
|-
| [[Germany]] || 29 || 82.0 || 1.00
|-
| [[United Kingdom]] || 29 || 59.4 || 1.38
|-
| [[France]] || 29 || 59.1 || 1.39
|-
| [[Italy]] || 29 || 57.7 || 1.42
|-
| [[Spain]] || 27 || 39.4 || 1.94
|-
| [[Poland]] || 27 || 38.6 || 1.98
|-
| [[Romania]] || 14 || 22.3 || 1.78
|-
| [[Netherlands]] || 13 || 15.8 || 2.33
|-
| [[Greece]] || 12 || 10.6 || 3.20
|-
| [[Czech Republic]] || 12 || 10.3 || 3.29
|-
| [[Belgium]] || 12 || 10.2 || 3.33
|-
| [[Hungary]] || 12 || 10.0 || 3.39
|-
| [[Portugal]] || 12 || 9.9 || 3.42
|-
| [[Sweden]] || 10 || 8.9 || 3.18
|-
| [[Austria]] || 10 || 8.1 || 3.49
|-
| [[Bulgaria]] || 10 || 7.7 || 3.67
|-
| [[Slovakia]] || 7 || 5.4 || 3.67
|-
| [[Denmark]] || 7 || 5.3 || 3.73
|-
| [[Finland]] || 7 || 5.2 || 3.81
|-
| [[Lithuania]] || 7 || 3.7 || 5.35
|-
| [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]] || 7 || 3.7 || 5.35
|-
| [[Latvia]] || 4 || 2.4 || 4.71
|-
| [[Slovenia]] || 4 || 2.0 || 5.67
|-
| [[Estonia]] || 4 || 1.4 || 8.08
|-
| [[Cyprus]] || 4 || 0.8 || 14.14
|-
| [[Luxembourg]] || 4 || 0.4 || 28.28
|-
| [[Malta]] || 3 || 0.4 || 21.26
|-
| colspan=4 | <hr>
|-
| &nbsp; || Total || 345 || 490
|}

The Treaty provided for an increase after enlargement of the number of seats in the [[European Parliament]] to 732, which exceeded the cap established by the Treaty of Amsterdam.

The question of a reduction in the size of the [[European Commission]] after enlargement was resolved to a degree &mdash; the Treaty providing that once the number of Member States reached 27, the number of Commissioners appointed in the subsequent Commission would be reduced by the Council to below 27, but without actually specifying the target of that reduction. As a transitional measure it specified that after 1 January 2005, Germany, France, the [[United Kingdom]], [[Italy]] and [[Spain]] would each give up their second Commissioner.

The Treaty provided for the creation of subsidiary courts below the [[European Court of Justice]] and the [[General Court (European Union)|Court of First Instance]] (now the General Court) to deal with special areas of law such as patents.

The Treaty of Nice provides for new rules on closer co-operation, the rules introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam being viewed as unworkable, and hence these rules have not yet been used.

In response to the failed sanctions against [[Austria]] following a coalition including [[Jörg Haider]]'s party having come to power, and fears about possible future threats to the stability of the new member states to be admitted in enlargement, the Treaty of Nice added a preventive mechanism to sanctions against a Member State that was created by the Amsterdam Treaty.<ref>{{cite web|first= Wojciech|last= Sadurski|author-link=Wojciech Sadurski|title = Adding a Bite to a Bark? A Story of Article 7, the EU Enlargement, and Jörg Haider|publisher=Sydney Law School, [[University of Sydney]]|year=2010|url=http://ecgi.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=365086110124003107025082007072124029031084070081044092070068068070126096105089064113057037031013031061114094095018086108067077015055013006080113008010090102116120001012040115093117127113006069086096064002006002064005068125121082008088029002120123026&EXT=pdf|access-date = 2015-10-28}}</ref>

The Treaty also contained provisions to deal with the financial consequences of the expiry of the [[European Coal and Steel Community]] (ECSC) treaty ([[Treaty of Paris (1951)]]).