Libertas.org

3. Surrender of More than 60 Vetoes

Under the Lisbon Treaty, more than 60 areas of legislation transfer from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting which uses population as its principle criterion. This means the voice of smaller states like Ireland is weakened in areas such as social security, immigration, energy, culture and even sport. Worse still, the percentage threshold for blocking legislation with which Ireland does not agree is raised from 27% to 35%.

Some of the areas where Ireland’s Veto is Lost:

• Election of European Council President
• Powers of Europol and Eurojust
• Employment Policy
• ECB powers over financial regulation
• Various aspects of Foreign and Security Policy including proposals from the new (unelected) Foreign Minister; terrorism and mutual support; consular issues; and the budget for the EU foreign policy fund
• Comitology – the composition and procedure of committees
• Social Security
• Customs Cooperation between member states and the Commission
• Amendments to certain parts of the Statutes of the European Central Bank
• Measures relating to the broad economic guidelines and excessive deficit procedure
• Transport
• European Research Area
• Space Policy
• Energy Policy
• Border checks
• Common Immigration Policy
• Integration of Migrants
• Culture
• Tourism
• Sport
• EU Budget oversight
• Principles of European Administration