Brussels, 09/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 8 December, the Council made changes to its internal procedural rules, in order to take account of the updated population figures of the member states in 2016, in the adoption of legislative texts.
In decreasing order, the percentage of the population of a country in relation to the total population of the EU (508,940,955 people), is as follows: Germany (15.93%), France (13.04%), the United Kingdom (12.73%), Italy (12.07%), Spain (9.12%), Poland (7.47%), Romania (3.9%), the Netherlands (3.37%), Belgium (2.21%), Greece (2.13%), the Czech Republic (2.05%), Portugal (2.04%), Hungary (1.94%), Sweden (1.92%), Austria (1.69%), Bulgaria (1.42%), Denmark (1.11%), Finland (1.08%), Slovakia (1.06%), Ireland (0.91%), Croatia (0.83%), Lithuania (0.57%), Slovenia (0.41%), Latvia (0.39%), Estonia (0.26%), Cyprus (0.17%), Luxembourg (0.11%) and Malta (0.08%).
Since November 2014, the legislative procedure known as co-decision has provided for decisions to be made by a qualified majority of the member states at the Council of the EU. This is reached when the member states in favour of a legislative proposal represent at least 65% of the population of the EU and at least 55% of the total number of member states (currently 16 countries). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)