Germany, the Square Root of Poland's Problem

A few months ago, I wrote about Poland's proposal to base voting in the Council of Ministers on the square root of a member state's population. As European leaders meet in Brussels this week for a European Council Summit, Poland's proposal is proving to be the biggest stumbling block in reaching agreement on a mini-treaty to reform the EU's institutions. Below I have compiled some data showing the equivalent votes member states would have in the Council under three different proposals — the current system from the Nice Treaty, under the now dead European Constitution, and under the Polish proposal. You can see from the graph that Poland's proposal is solely aimed at Germany. In fact, both Germany and Poland receive the fewest votes under the Polish proposal.