THE TREATY OF LISBON: AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. This report assesses the impact of the Treaty
of Lisbon. The Government are asking the two Houses of Parliament
to enable them to ratify the Treaty by passing the European Union
(Amendment) Bill. This report aims to inform the House of the
most important aspects of the Treaty, by comparing its provisions
with the status quo, and assessing their impact on the
institutions of the EU, on the Member States and on the UK.
A COMPLEX DOCUMENT
1.2. At present the EU is governed by two principal
Treaties:
- The Treaty establishing the European Community
(TEC);
- The Treaty on European Union (TEU).
1.3. The Treaty of Lisbon[1]
will not constitute a third Treaty. Nor will it replace the two
current Treaties with a single Treaty. Rather, it will amend both
the existing Treaties. It will also rename one of them: the TEC
will become the "Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union" (TFEU, or in some commentaries TOFU). The Lisbon Treaty
replaces all references in the TEU and TEC to the "Community"
or "European Community" with references to the "Union".
1.4. The Lisbon Treaty has only seven Articles;
the first contains amendments to the TEU, and the second contains
amendments to the TEC. There are also 11 new Protocols to be annexed
to the Treaties; plus a Protocol (to the Lisbon Treaty itself)
amending the pre-existing Treaty Protocols. The texts of the Treaties
and Protocols have the same legal value. Finally, the Inter-Governmental
Conference (IGC) which agreed the Lisbon Treaty also provided
for a number of Declarations; these are political acts, but may
be relevant to the Treaty's interpretation.
1.5. Many provisions of the current TEU and TEC
are changed or moved, or both, by the Lisbon Treaty. Others are
deleted; and new provisions are introduced. Appendix 3 to this
Report contains a table giving an outline of what the Lisbon Treaty
does to the Treaties in structural terms. Once the Lisbon Treaty
is in force and the amendments to the TEU and TEC take effect,
on 1 January 2009 subject to ratification, the Lisbon Treaty itself
will be consigned to history.
1.6. The reasons for this complex structure are
historical. The now defunct Constitutional Treaty which, though
ratified by some Member States, was rejected by French and Dutch
voters in referenda in 2005 would have substituted a single consolidated
Treaty. David Heathcoat-Amory MP, an opponent of the
Constitutional Treaty, admitted that this was a point in its favour
(Q S48). John Palmer[2]
said that the Lisbon Treaty "defies all but the most dedicated
specialist and legal experts to understand and interpret it"
(Q S3). Sir David Edward[3],
on the other hand, found the two-Treaty structure "coherent",
with objectives and principles in the TEU and the detail in the
TFEU (Q S115).
1.7. The Lisbon Treaty also makes consequential
amendments to the Euratom Treaty. These are not considered further
in this report.
1.8. The Lisbon Treaty itself is complicated
and inaccessible. This was perhaps unavoidable; but it is unsatisfactory,
and has hindered public debate. On 21 January the Government
published, at our request, two useful documents: a consolidated
text of the EU Treaties as they would be amended by the Lisbon
Treaty (Cm 7310); and a table, mapping each article in the consolidated
text onto its origins in the current Treaties and the Lisbon Treaty
(Cm 7311).
1.9. These documents were not available to our
witnesses. However, since they are now available, we have as far
as possible used their numbering in this report. While we know
of no reason to doubt the accuracy of these documents, they are
illustrative and do not have legal force[4].
We are grateful to the Government for the considerable work involved
in producing these documents. We expect that in the event of completion
of the ratification process the EU would produce consolidated
texts which can be considered authoritative throughout the EU.
OUR INQUIRY
1.10. There are several things which this report
does not do. It does not compare the Lisbon Treaty with the now
abandoned Constitutional Treaty. It does not comment on the process
by which the Lisbon Treaty was produced. It is not a commentary
on the bill; and it does not address the question whether there
should be a UK referendum on this Treaty.
1.11. Finally, this report does not offer an
overall assessment, or a view on whether the UK should or should
not ratify the Treaty. That is now a matter for Parliament. For
simplicity's sake this report says in many places that the Lisbon
Treaty "does" or "will do" this or that; but
of course it will do so only if it is ratified by all Member States.
1.12. This report is the result of unprecedented
collaboration between all seven Sub-Committees and the Select
Committee itself. It has involved 80 members of the House, listed
in Appendix 1. We have taken evidence both at Westminster and
in Brussels, and the evidence is mostly printed in the companion
volume to this report. The witnesses who provided it are listed
in Appendix 2, and we are grateful to them all. We also thank
Oliver Bretz, who gave specialist advice to Sub-Committee B. And
we take this opportunity to record our thanks to Dr Christopher
Kerse CB, who retired as our Legal Adviser in the course of this
inquiry.
1.13. To help the reader unfamiliar with EU jargon,
there is a glossary in Appendix 6.
1.14. The evidence collected by each Sub-Committee
is printed in a separate section with lettered page numbers, as
follows:
- A Economic and Financial Affairs and International
Trade
- B Internal Market
- C Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development
Policy
- D Environment and Agriculture
- E Law and Institutions—focus on the
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
- F Home Affairs
- G Social and Consumer Affairs
- S Select Committee—focus on the Institutions
1.15. References to oral evidence use the same
lettering system. So, for example, "Q S1" means Question
1 in the oral evidence collected by the Select Committee, and
will be found in the "S" pages.
1.16. We make this report for debate. We suggest
that, exceptionally, it might be debated alongside Second Reading
of the European Union (Amendment) Bill. We expect a Government
response within the usual two months from publication, and ideally
in time to inform Report stage of the bill.
1 Until it was signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007,
the Treaty was widely referred to as the Reform Treaty. The Treaty's
own Article 7 refers to it as "the Treaty of Lisbon". Back
2
Political director of the European Policy Centre. Back
3
Honorary Professor at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh;
judge at the European Court of Justice 1992-2004. Back
4
As the Foreign Secretary says in the foreword to Cm 7310. Back
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