§ Lord Stoddart of Swindonasked Her Majesty's Government:
In the light of the refusal of the Norwegian people to join the European Community, when they will seek to re-negotiate the agreement on qualified majority voting; and what position they will adopt.
§ Baroness TrumpingtonWe will not renegotiate the agreement reached on qualified majority voting during the recent enlargement negotiations until the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference. Article 2(2) of the Accession Treaty for Sweden, Finland, Austria and Norway provides for the Council to make the necessary adjustments to the Treaty to take account of the non-accession of one of the applicants.
149WAA draft Council decision to take account of Norwegian non-accession has been submitted to the European Select Committees of both Houses for scrutiny. This amends the qualified majority voting articles of the Treaty to remove Norway's allocation of 3 votes and amend the qualified majority threshold from 64 to 62. A separate Council decision, a draft of which has also been submitted to the Select Committees, will amend the Ioannina decision to apply to dissenting minorities of between 23 and 25 votes. The Council will make these decisions on 1 January 1995.