Unanimity versus Majority Voting

Anybody who has chaired a multinational committee as I did for several years will be fully aware of the difficulties and time required to achieve unanimity. A committee with executive powers can agree by unanimity to change its own internal voting arrangements so that in certain cases and over certain issues unanimity will be deemed to have been achieved if those assenting exceed a certain lower percentage figure, preferably something neatly framed running to several percentage figures precisely calculated to empower a particular block of voters. Where it is not possible to change the terms under which the committee was established, defeated minority voting members could bind themselves to in future change their votes once defeated to ensure that the original principle of unanimty has theoretically been met. Machinations such as that mentioned above are entirely feasible when there are no obligations to publicize details of the inner workings or agreements of such a committee or where there is no regulatory body overseeing the committee, all of which applies to the European Council. Why then has this worrying announcement of Monday's meeting between PM Prodi of Italy and French President Sarkozy not been further reported in the English and particularly the British press: France and Italy "are united by a common will to reinforce the European institutions," Prodi said at a news conference in Paris after his meeting with Sarkozy. He said the two countries were going into a European summit next month with "common goals" — including changing the way decisions in the 27-member bloc are made to allow for majority rule in some cases (my emphasis), as well as the establishment of a European presidency and the post of EU foreign minister. The extract is from the IHT linked from here. Of even greater concern is the UK Conservative Party's total obsession with Grammar Schools and silence on the Blair/Brown arrangements for the Berlin summit!