Qualified majority voting (QMV – an alternative to the unanimity requirement) favors big states and marginalizes the others  QMV in the Council before the accession of Croatia required 74.8% of the votes (258 out of 345). These votes are determined by an equation that takes into account size of population, e.g. Germany has 29 votes while Malta has only 3 votes. Also, a Member State may ask that the qualified majority represents at least 62% of the total population of EU. This system, as Novak puts it, may be potentially oblivious to the needs of smaller states as “the presidency and the Commission seek the support of big countries as a priority because they thereby achieve a qualified majority more quickly.” Furthermore, Novak continues that sometimes, small countries lack resources and large civil services “which seems to lead them pretty mechanically to rely on the Commission’s expertise, or, less often, on that of representatives of big countries.” [1] There we see that substituting unanimity requirement with QMV poses a real danger of marginalizing smaller states through a seemingly ‘democratic voting procedure’. While it is bad enough to foster such behavior regarding the common EU policies, it is unthinkable that this could happen during negotiations on important treaties (like common EU treaties).  [1] Novak, S 2011, Qualified majority voting from the Single European Act to present day: an unexpected permanence, Notre Europe, viewed 29 September 2013, &lt;  .