The Treaty of Lisbon

KEY POINTS

Institutional changes

TheEuropean Parliament

• is now composed of representatives of the EU’s citizens, not, as previously, of the peoples of the EU countries, thus establishing a stronger democratic link between Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the electorate;
• enjoys increased legislative powers through the use of the ordinary legislative procedure. The Lisbon Treaty extends this to 40 new policy areas, raising to 73 the total number where the Parliament and the Council adopt legislation on an equal footing;
• elects the European Commission President by a majority of its members;
• has a maximum number of 751 members.

The European Council

Consisting of heads of state or government, this gives the EU greater continuity and coherence. It is formally recognised as an EU institution that sets out the EU’s general political directions and priorities.

It elects by majority vote a president for a once renewable 30-month mandate, replacing the previous 6-month rotating role.

The Council

It applies new majority voting rules when approving legislation. To secure a majority requires at least 55% of EU countries representing at least 65% of the EU’s population. To block a proposal, at least 4 countries have to be against.

It meets in public when discussing and voting on draft legislation.

TheEuropean Commission

The President of the Commission is:

• chosen and elected based on the outcome of the European elections;
• responsible for the appointment of commissioners, the distribution of their portfolios and can request an individual commissioner to resign.

The Court of Justice of the EU

Its jurisdiction is extended to all EU policy areas except for the common foreign and security policy.

The European Central Bank (ECB)

The ECB is now formally recognised as an EU institution by being listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU).

Common foreign and security policy

The treaty:

• establishes the new post of Commission vice-president and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The person chairs the foreign affairs council (Article 18 TEU);
• creates the European External Action Service, whose staff come from the Commission, Council and national diplomatic services;
• introduces a mutual defence clause whereby all EU countries must help each other/another EU country if it is under attack.

Other changes

EU policies

The previous pillar structure is replaced by a new distribution of competences:

• exclusive: areas where the EU alone legislates and member countries implement (Article 3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU));
• shared: areas where EU countries can legislate and adopt legally binding measures if the EU has not done so (Article 4 TFEU);
• supporting: areas where the EU adopts measures to support, coordinate or supplement national policies (Article 6 TFEU);
• in addition, all policies on border controls, asylum, immigration and judicial and policy cooperation become an EU competence, instead of being an intergovernmental responsibility, as before.

Strengthening democracy

The treaty:

• confirms the 3 fundamental principles of democratic equality¹, representative democracy² and participatory democracy³;
• introduces the citizens’ initiative which is one of the major innovations of the Treaty of Lisbon by which not less than one million citizens (under certain condition) may invite the Commission to submit a proposal (Article 11 TEU);
• makes the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding and giving it the same legal value as the treaties (Article 6 TEU)
• gives national parliaments a greater say in EU decision making (Article 12 TEU);
• the ordinary legislative procedure (former co-decision) is now the default legislative procedure where the European Parliament is on an equal footing with the Council as co-legislator (Article 294 TFEU);
• introduces the distinction between legislative acts and non-legislative acts depending on their decision making-process (Article 297 TFEU);
• introduces delegated acts (Article 290 TFEU) and implementing acts (Article 291 TFEU). The former gives the Commission the power to adopt non-legislative acts of general application to supplement a legislative act (but not on essential elements). The latter provides a framework for the Commission’s action in former comitology domains.

Leaving the EU

The treaty provides for the first time a formal procedure if an EU country wishes to withdraw from the EU (Article 50 TEU – see summary on Article 50 negotiations with the UK (1)).