The Lisbon Treaty and its Consequences on the European Union Decision Making

The European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political partnership between 28 different countries. It consists of about half a billion citizens, and its combined economy represents about 20 percent of the world’s total economy (Briney, 2015). Today The European Union works as a single market, with free movement of people, goods and services from one country to another. There is a standard system of laws to be followed, and since 1999 many countries share a single currency called the Euro (Europa.eu, 2015). This essay will explore the background history of the European Union and the benefits and drawbacks of the European Union.

Since 1950 European Union (EU) was created it has promoted peace, prosperity and values among the member nations and its neighbouring countries. EU’s influential tools, has helped transform many European states into functioning democracies and prosperous countries. EU’s membership has grown from 6 to 28 countries (Enlargement, 2014), satisfying a historic vow to integrate the continent bringing in most states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by peaceful ideals.EU has anticipated the enlargement as an extraordinary opportunity to endorse political strength and economic success in Europe. EU’s extension policy is open to any European state that fulfils the EU’s political and financial criteria for membership; still the political process of inclusion of new state requires a unanimous agreement from all the existing 28 member states. Europe is considered to be more flourishing and safer place due to the promotion of democracy, anti-corruption policy and the single market policy.

Part of the exceptional nature of the EU stems from the notion that nothing like it has ever been attempted successfully before. The European Union is an international institution with a single market and shared currency. It strives to maintain singular goals and make its way towards being an “ever closer union”. Today, the European Union has expanded to include twenty-eight member countries with an influence that reaches every continent. This institution has had an impressive history, but it has reached a point of concern. The golden years which held high hopes of a united supranational Union are long over. The EU faces destructive problems today, which could ultimately end their impressive era of cooperation. The Union has come

6. All new EU Treaties must be ratified by each Member State according to its own constitutional provisions.

The European Union (EU) is fundamentally democratic and is evident through its institutions, however, the current democratic electoral structure is of great concern. The EU is a new type of political system, often referred to as a sui generis, implying its uniqueness as there exists and a non comparable political body. The EU can neither regarded as a ‘state’ nor as an ‘international institution’ as it combines supranational as well as intergovernmental characteristics (Hix, 1999, p7). In this regard it has developed its own understandings of what democracy is. It is evident that the development of and spread of democracy is a central concept and foundation to all politics within the EU, and remains focuses on makings its governing

The European Union’s role in the international sphere, as well as the aim to improve its external actions, have been considered to be the two most important features of the Lisbon Treaty. Within the Lisbon Treaty, the combination of the provisions on mutual assistance and solidarity created new pressures on member states to assist one another in cases of armed attacks, disasters being it natural or man-made and crisis on EU territory.

The Treaty of Lisbon made a significant change towards the values of Europe and aimed to create a Europe of rights and values. Article 151 TFEU declared that all Member States ‘shall have as their objectives the promotion of employment, improving living and working conditions so as to make possible their harmonisation while the improvement is being maintained, proper social protection.’ The EU believed that this Article would ensure the proper function of the internal market and aims to harmonise the social systems. However, Article 151 TFEU excluded a lot of rights regarding the protection of workers and gave the right to Member States to draft their own fundamental principles on their social security systems. This right allowed Member States to maintain or adopt new protective measures, but had to be compatible

The European Union has greatly evolved over the decades since it has begun into a well-evolved quasi-state of over 28 countries, and over five hundred million citizens. The European Union has been regarded as a method to bring democratic stability and economic prosperity to less developed democracies in East and Central Europe. While the European Union has a mandate to bring all of these standards, the European Union lacks these basic standards for their overall institution. This structural problem has given the European Union its own ‘democratic deficit’. The rise of the democratic deficit has arisen from many undemocratic characteristics of EU institutions, and a lack of a demos or a lack of a single socio cultural European identity. In order for a political body to remain legitimate, it must have the trust and support of the citizens it governs, and makes changes for the continuation of its future. In other words, if the European Union does not take action to combat its democratic deficit, the future of the European Unions institution will be at risk. Another serious issue is the European Union has seen democratic backsliding of many Eastern European countries. This paper will discuss the major issues that the Democratic Deficit has caused for the European Union, and what possible reforms can be done to help fix the democratic deficit.

Further, there cannot be found any indication or acknowledgement, in relation to this, of levels of government apart from than those of the State Member or the Community ? nor the levels above the EC or EU and not also the below the Member State. The paragraph set up or exemplified three guidelines that are to be evaluated and checked for the determination of whether steps should be taken by the Community in the field of so-called mutual capabilities and expertise: primarily whether an issue has transnational aspects that cannot be sustainably regulated by Member State action; then, whether the lack of community action or the Member State action would contradict with the Treaty needs and then thirdly whether action at Community level would result in apt benefits of scale or effect[footnoteRef:4]. However, these guidelines though tend to offer bit more than the terms of Article 5 (3b) of the EC Treaty[footnoteRef:5].it evolves into probable when they are evaluated or scrutinized that they to a great extent redefine or reestablish the greater political questions in open-ended terms, and do not contribute to or equip in the strong legal criteria to answer them. The first of the three is a probability of the most established guideline, in the relevance of that the presence of

The Lisbon treaty followed the disastrous Constitutional Treaty of 2004 that was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands. After a period of reflection, negotiations began for another treaty (Laursen, 2013:9). These negotiations continued for months, after which it was left to the Portuguese presidency to complete the Treaty, and thus the Treaty became known as the Lisbon Treaty. It was signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007, but only entered into force on 1 December 2009 following ratification problems, particularly in Ireland (Cini and Borragen, 2013:51). Attitudes towards the Lisbon Treaty differ widely (Laursen, 2013: 9). For some, the Treaty simply sets out incremental reforms designed to make the EU more accountable and

The role of the European Parliament in the EU decision-making process is to gradually strengthened. Initially it is only entitled to counseling and supervision. Prior to 1986, the maximum power it holds it is only right to decide on the budget, you can modify the non-mandatory budget for mandatory budget for minor changes, and formally adopted budget. 1986 “Single European Act” by the so-called “cooperative program”, making it the right to a preliminary decision of the Council 's proposed amendments and has authority over the second reading of the draft legislation. After the signing, “Maastricht Treaty” has confirmed the above-mentioned system by the “Single European Act” established and further expand it may reject draft legislation for the Council, and to report thereon to veto the proposed legislation. The “Amsterdam Treaty” by introducing a “shared decision making” system, the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers placed in the same position on the legislation, the European Parliament finally become a true partnership legislature. National interests between EU member states and the European Union have agreed on the development of supra-national integration, there are also contradictory, divided diversification and various decision-making body of the EU decision-making body can be seen as a search for balance and consensus, resolve conflicts institutional arrangements. This arrangement with Western political separation of powers strong color, also contains

In the past years, the possible future of the European Union (EU) has been of increasing interest to social and political scientists as well as the public. Since 2008, the EU has experienced events such as the economic crisis and the 2014 European Parliament election, which have fostered intense debates around the legitimising basis of the EU (Zielonka, 2014). Furthermore, with the election of David Cameron in the 2015 United Kingdom general election even the possibility of the United Kingdom leaving the EU has been discussed. Although many social and political scientists do not believe such a scenario (REFERENCE), one could argue that there is an increasing need for the EU to redefine itself in order not to experience a genuine ‘downfall’. Consequently, an alternative theory of EU integration challenging the classical intergovernmental and neofunctional understandings of the EU has gained increasing support among political scientists.

The European Union (EU) was established in order to prevent the horrors of modern warfare, experienced by most of Europe during the World Wars of the 20th century, from ever ensuing again, by aiming to create an environment of trust with the countries of Europe cooperating in areas such as commerce, research and trade (Adams, 2001). The EU has evolved into an economic, trade, political and monetary alliance between twenty-eight European Member States. While not all Member States are in monetary union (i.e. share the currency of the euro), those that are form the ‘Euro-zone’ (Dinan, 2006). The EU can pass a number of types of legislation, with a regulation, act, or law, being the most powerful. Its ‘tricameral’ (European Union, 2007)

Established in 1887, the European Union (EU) was initially created as a means to protect and defend peace and facilitate economic recovery after the end of World War Two throughout the six original members states; France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Since its conception, the EU has become a significant player in the global arena, economically, politically and also in the form of humanitarian and environmental aid and assistance around the world, currently providing 60% of the worlds development assistance ( Michel, 2007, pg. 23). The question of whether the European union is a significant global actor however, needs firstly to take into consideration the very definition of the European Union as a global entity, and also the definition of the area of ‘actorness’. Once clarified, this essay will argue that the EU’s global presence, capability as an institution in international politics and its future opportunity all demonstrate the EU’s capabilities as a significant global actor in the global political arena.

The European Coal and Steel Community body was created post war second world war not only to achieve peace but also to solve the economic difficulties that the countries were facing. To achieve this, six countries agreed t the Treaty of Paris in effect forming an area of free trade. The book also looks at the the European Economic Community, a body created in 1958 to build a common market that had no tariffs or bottlenecks to the movement of goods and labor. This chapter looks at the transformation of the European Union through a number of political reforms and is depicted through the evolution of three distinct pillars:the European Communities, The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council. This evolution is tracked to what Smith describes as ‘the world’s largest unified market and trading bloc that conducts economic and trading relations with virtually every country’(Smith, 21).