Once the Commission has adopted a proposal on the approval this is forwarded to the Standing Committee of the Member States. Should the Committee approve the Commission's proposal with a two-thirds majority vote (distributed among the member states proportional to the number of citizens) the proposal is adopted. Should the Committee fail to agree with a 2/3 majority, the proposal would be submitted to the Council of Ministers. The Council however, can only overrule the Commission's proposal with a two-thirds majority. Should it fail to do so (which has been the case for all new approval decisions so far) the Commission can decide on its own.
Below is a list of the different member states' number of votes:
Austria 10 Belgium 12 Bulgaria 10 Cyprus 4 Czech Republic 12 Denmark 7 Estonia 4 Finland 7 France 29 Germany 29 Greece 12 Hungary 12 Ireland 7 Italy 29 Latvia 4 Lithuania 7 Luxembourg 4 Malta 3 Netherlands 13 Poland 27 Portugal 12 Romania 14 Slovakia 7 Slovenia 4 Spain 27 Sweden 10 United Kingdom 29 TOTAL 345 Qualified majority: 255
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