Benoemingen en procedurewijzigingen na toetreding Bulgarije en Roemenië (en)

Met dank overgenomen van Raad van de Europese Unie (Raad), gepubliceerd op maandag 1 januari 2007.

COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

C/07/1

Brussels, 1 January 2007

5002/07 (Presse 1)

Accession of Bulgaria and Romania:

EU appointments and changes to Council procedures

The Council has overseen a number of appointments in the European Union's institutions to coincide with the accession today of Bulgaria and Romania, and has adjusted its own procedures in order to cater for the change.

The Council today adopted:

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by common accord with the president of the Commission and following a vote of approval by the European Parliament, a decision appointing as members of the Commission, for the period from 1 January 2007 to 31 October 2009:

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a decision appointing as members of the Court of Auditors, for a period of six years from 1 January 2007:

Ms Nadhezhda Sandolova (Bulgaria)

Ovidiu Ispir (Romania);

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a decision appointing as members of the Economic and Social Committee, for the period from 1 January 2007 to 20 September 2010, the persons listed in document 15297/1/06;
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a decision appointing as members and alternate members of the Committee of the Regions, for the period from 1 January 2007 to 25 January 2010, the persons listed in document 15666/06.

Representatives of the member states adopted:

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a decision appointing as judges at the Court of Justice:

Ms Camelia Toader (Romania) for the period from 1 January 2007 to 6 October 2009, and:

Mr Alexander Arabadjiev (Bulgaria) for the period from 1 January 2007 to 6 October 2012;

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a decision appointing as judges at the Court of First Instance:

Mr Theodore Chipev (Bulgaria) for the period from 1 January 2007 to 31 August 2007, and:

Mr Valeriu Ciuca (Romania) for the period from 1 January 2007 to 31 August 2010.

The Council also adopted:

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a decision amending its rules of procedure in order to update official EU and member state population figures for 2007 for the purposes of qualified majority voting within the Council (15488/06 + ADD1).

The Council's rules of procedure provide that when a decision is to be adopted by qualified majority, if a member of the Council so requests, it must be checked that the member states constituting the qualified majority represent at least 62% of the total population of the Union. For this purpose EU population figures are updated every year in accordance with data supplied by Eurostat.

For 2007 the threshold of 62% is established as 305.5 million people out of a total of 492.8 million.

As from 1 January 2007, the qualified majority is set at 255 votes out of a total of 345, whilst also representing a majority in number of the member states.