Treaty of Lisbon

The Treaty of Lisbon is an international agreement that established new regulations and procedures for the European Union (EU) when it entered into force in 2009. The European Union is a political and economic partnership of twenty-eight European countries. The Treaty of Lisbon amended the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and the Treaty of Maastricht of 1993, the two founding documents of the EU itself.

The Treaty of Lisbon created the positions of president of the European Council and high representative for foreign affairs, allowed for fairer voting procedures in deliberative EU bodies, and devised protocols for countries to leave the EU. The treaty had been designed to improve the function of the EU, but critics of the document claimed it compromised the sovereignties of individual European nations by making the EU too powerful as a whole.

Background

The two treaties modified by the Treaty of Lisbon—the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty of Maastricht—are the foundational documents of the EU. They established the frameworks on which the EU operates in the twenty-first century. The origins of the EU lie in the Treaty of Paris of 1951, which founded the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The ECSC allowed the coal and steel industries in several Western European countries to conduct business with one another. This was intended to promote cooperation and friendship in Europe and prevent any further World War II–like (1939–1945) scenarios on the continent.

The Treaty of Rome of 1957 built upon the ideals of the ECSC by creating the European Economic Community (EEC), a single market for European countries to transport their products, services, and investments to other European nations with no legal restrictions and with only minor customs requirements. The original EEC member states were Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The Treaty of Rome was a great success, and the EEC grew in membership over the next several decades.

By the early 1990s, the EEC nations had become interested in broadening the scope of their partnership to include political provisions in addition to economic ones. Negotiations among EEC members ultimately led to the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, or the Treaty on European Union, in 1992. The treaty created the EU, a political and economic partnership of European nations. This new organization established collective economic, judicial, and national security policies for all EU members with the goal of fostering communication and cooperation among European states. The Maastricht Treaty officially took effect in late 1993, transitioning the twelve EEC countries into the twelve member states of the EU.

The EU nations attempted to create a constitution for their organization in 2004. The document was meant to allow the various EU government bodies and other institutions to operate more fluidly. All twenty-seven EU members at the time signed the European Constitution, but it was rejected in national votes held in France and the Netherlands in mid-2005. The people of those nations had refused to accept the constitution due to political conflicts it would have created with the interests of their respective countries. In 2007, EU officials began drafting a treaty to replace the unratified European Constitution.

Overview

Leaders of the EU states negotiated a new European treaty throughout 2007. This resulted in the creation of the Treaty of Lisbon in October of 2007. It was so named because EU leaders signed it in Lisbon, Portugal, in December of that year.

The drafters of the Treaty of Lisbon had always intended the document to update and replace the rejected European Constitution. Therefore, the final draft of the treaty included many of the prescriptions of the 2004 constitution while adding various changes intended to win the approval of France, the Netherlands, and other countries that had contested the terms of the constitution. The main difference between the constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon was that the constitution had sought to replace the treaties of Rome and Maastricht, while the Treaty of Lisbon only amended them. The treaty's amendments were related primarily to the functioning of the EU, as the document combined bodies and directives to make the organization more efficient.

Simultaneously, the Treaty of Lisbon borrowed from the European Constitution in the numerous significant changes it made to the EU. The treaty created two important EU positions. The first was the president of the European Council, the body that creates general policies for the EU. The other was the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy. This latter position combined the responsibilities of the former foreign affairs and external affairs offices.

Another element the Treaty of Lisbon adapted from the European Constitution was the institution of qualified majority voting in the Council of the EU, one of the organization's lawmaking bodies. The council's voting system assigned weights to each EU member based on size and population. Smaller countries had less voting weight. The Treaty of Lisbon redistributed these weights to make voting fairer. It would now be more difficult for single countries to block votes that affected many other member states.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Lisbon equalized most of the powers of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which together made up the EU's legislative branch. The two bodies now had to work more closely together to create laws. Finally, the Treaty of Lisbon eliminated member nations' veto powers in relation to emergency aid, climate change, and energy security. This meant that the EU could legally address these matters even if one or more member states voted against doing so. The EU still needed the unanimous approval of member states to act on issues such as foreign policy and national security.

One of the most noteworthy sections of the Treaty of Lisbon was Article 50, which outlined the protocol for countries to leave the EU. The article was short, leaving some to suggest that the treaty's drafters had never thought a member state would actually withdraw from the organization. However, the article became international news in mid-2016, after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a nationwide referendum. Article 50 stated that a country wishing to depart the EU must define its intended future relationship with the organization during a lengthy period of negotiation with EU leaders.

The Treaty of Lisbon was controversial from its inception. Supporters claimed it strengthened the EU and made the partnership's leaders more accountable to member states. Critics argued the document made the EU government too powerful while dismissing the concerns of smaller members.

Bibliography

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