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Treaties of the European Union

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The Treaties of the European Union are effectively the basic constitutional texts of the Union. They set out the objectives of the Union and establish the various institutions which are intended to achieve those aims.

Current treaties

Evolution of the structure and policies of the Union

Since the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.

Legend:
  S: signing
  F: entry into force
  T: termination
  E: expiry
    de facto supersession
  Rel. w/ EC/EU framework:
   de facto inside
   outside 		                  European Union (EU) [Cont.]  
European Communities (EC) (Pillar I)
European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) [Cont.]      
/ / / European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)  
(Distr. of competences)
    European Economic Community (EEC)    
            Schengen Rules European Community (EC)
'TREVI' Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, pillar II)  
  / North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) [Cont.] Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC, pillar II)

Anglo-French alliance 		[Defence arm handed to NATO] European Political Co-operation (EPC)   Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP, pillar III)
Western Union (WU) / Western European Union (WEU) [Tasks defined following the WEU's 1984 reactivation handed to the EU]
     
[Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE] [Cont.]                
      Council of Europe (CoE)
Entente Cordiale
S: 8 April 1904
Dunkirk Treaty[i]
S: 4 March 1947
F: 8 September 1947
E: 8 September 1997
Brussels Treaty[i]
S: 17 March 1948
F: 25 August 1948
T: 30 June 2011
London and Washington treaties[i]
S: 5 May/4 April 1949
F: 3 August/24 August 1949
Paris treaties: ECSC and EDC[ii]
S: 18 April 1951/27 May 1952
F: 23 July 1952/—
E: 23 July 2002/—
Rome treaties: EEC and EAEC
S: 25 March 1957
F: 1 January 1958
WEU-CoE agreement[i]
S: 21 October 1959
F: 1 January 1960
Brussels (Merger) Treaty[iii]
S: 8 April 1965
F: 1 July 1967
Davignon report
S: 27 October 1970
Single European Act (SEA)
S: 17/28 February 1986
F: 1 July 1987
Schengen Treaty and Convention
S: 14 June 1985/19 June 1990
F: 26 March 1995
Maastricht Treaty[iv][v]
S: 7 February 1992
F: 1 November 1993
Amsterdam Treaty
S: 2 October 1997
F: 1 May 1999
Nice Treaty
S: 26 February 2001
F: 1 February 2003
Lisbon Treaty[vi]
S: 13 December 2007
F: 1 December 2009


  1. ^ a b c d e Although not EU treaties per se, these treaties affected the development of the EU defence arm, a main part of the CFSP. The Franco-British alliance established by the Dunkirk Treaty was de facto superseded by WU. The CFSP pillar was bolstered by some of the security structures that had been established within the remit of the 1955 Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT). The Brussels Treaty was terminated in 2011, consequently dissolving the WEU, as the mutual defence clause that the Lisbon Treaty provided for EU was considered to render the WEU superfluous. The EU thus de facto superseded the WEU.
  2. ^ Plans to establish a European Political Community (EPC) were shelved following the French failure to ratify the Treaty establishing the European Defence Community (EDC). The EPC would have combined the ECSC and the EDC.
  3. ^ The European Communities obtained common institutions and a shared legal personality (i.e. ability to e.g. sign treaties in their own right).
  4. ^ The treaties of Maastricht and Rome form the EU's legal basis, and are also referred to as the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), respectively. They are amended by secondary treaties.
  5. ^ Between the EU's founding in 1993 and consolidation in 2009, the union consisted of three pillars, the first of which were the European Communities. The other two pillars consisted of additional areas of cooperation that had been added to the EU's remit.
  6. ^ The consolidation meant that the EU inherited the European Communities' legal personality and that the pillar system was abolished, resulting in the EU framework as such covering all policy areas. Executive/legislative power in each area was instead determined by a distribution of competencies between EU institutions and member states. This distribution, as well as treaty provisions for policy areas in which unanimity is required and qualified majority voting is possible, reflects the depth of EU integration as well as the EU's partly supranational and partly intergovernmental nature.

Founding treaties

European integration is at present based on four founding treaties:


Amending treaties

At times there have been far-reaching reforms bringing major institutional changes and introducing new areas of responsibility for the European institutions:

Accession treaties

Main article: Enlargement of the European Union

The founding treaties have also been amended (in a more limited fashion) whenever new member states acceded:

Budgetary treaties

Lastly there have been two budgetary treaties:

  • The Budgetary Treaty of 1970 (more fully the "Treaty amending Certain Budgetary Provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Communities and of the Treaty establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities"), signed in Luxembourg on 22 April 1970, gave the European Parliament the last word on what is known as "non-compulsory expenditure". It came into force on 1 January 1971.
  • The Budgetary Treaty of 1975 (more fully the "Treaty amending Certain Financial Provisions of the Treaty establishing the European Communities and of the Treaty establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities"), signed in Brussels on 22 July 1975, gave the European Parliament the power to reject the budget as a whole, and created the European Court of Auditors. It came into force on 1 June 1977.

Unratified treaties

The Treaty instituting a European Defence Community sought to create a pan-European defence force, combining the national armies under a supranational structure. It was signed on 27 May 1952 but the French National Assembly refused to ratify it. It was to lead to a European Political Community Treaty, which was drafted but abandoned after the failed ratification of the EDC Treaty.

The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe sought to consolidate, simplify and replace the existing set of overlapping treaties. It was signed on 29 October 2004 and was due to come into force on 1 November 2006, conditional on its ratification by all member states. During the process of ratification, France (on 29 May 2005) and then the Netherlands (on 1 June 2005) rejected the treaty in referendums.

Following the failed ratification of the Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty was agreed on 19 October 2007 at an informal meeting of European leaders in Lisbon. It was signed on 13 December 2007 and, expected ratification was due during 2008, with the treaty coming into force in 2009. The Irish by public referendum, the only member state that held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, rejected the treaty on 12 June 2008 and by doing created a considerable obstacle to the possibility of the treaty coming into force.

See also

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