16. Attaches great importance to the extension of qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council, as far as legislation is concerned; welcomes the improvement of the system, while underlining the need for further extensions of QMV or for the use of special QMV in the future, without prejudice to the possibilities provided in article I - 24.4 of the draft Constitution;

- extension of QMV in areas where it will benefit the UK and Europe (but not Treaty change, defence matters, border controls or taxation), and extension of codecision wherever QMV is extended

4. Is of the opinion that the European Council reached a totally unsatisfactory agreement on the crucial issue of the extension of majority voting in Council and codecision of Parliament; stresses the lack of consistency between the extension of QMV and codecision in the agreement; underlines that the present agreement implies that the role of the EP will not be extended in particular as regards external trade policy, agriculture and competition; emphasises the fact that retaining unanimity over tax issues will facilitate harmful tax competition between Member States; insists that the correct ...[+++] implementation of common policies, openness and democracy of the decision-making process and efficiency of the institutions are the only ways to make the enlargement process succeed;

5. Reiterates that the democratisation and effectiveness of decision-making procedures are essential to the success of enlargement; welcomes the importance accorded to the extension of the qualified-majority voting in the Council by the IGC, but also notes with growing concern the insufficient political commitment of Member States in this area; reiterates that in matters of legislation qualified-majority voting is indissociable from the full extension of codecision to embrace the issues of agriculture, competition and trade policies ...[+++]; recalls its demand concerning its own role in the conclusion of international agreements;

The Helsinki European Council (December 1999) reaffirmed this mandate and decided that the IGC would look at the size and composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council, the extension of qualified-majority voting, as well as any other institutional adjustments that would have to be made to the Treaties in connection with the above issues and in the context of implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam.

The European Constitutional Treaty, often called the Constitution, aimed to repeal and replace with a single text all the existing treaties with the exception of the Euratom Treaty. This text consolidated 50 years of European treaties. Apart from this work of consolidation and simplification of the texts, the Constitution also introduced numerous innovations such as: attribution of legal personality to the Union, clear definition of powers, the possibility of a Member State's withdrawing from the Union, the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, simplification of the Union's instruments of action, creation of the European Foreign Minister, the formal institutionalisation of the European Council, which will be chaired by an elec ...[+++]ted president for a period of two and a half years, the definition of a new system of qualified majority voting at the Council, various policy modifications, the disappearance of the pillar structure, the extension of qualified majority voting at the Council and the ordinary legislative procedure (codecision).