100 posts
Europe’s Case of ‘Chief Executive Envy’
Every time Europe goes through one of its occasional crises, calls arise across the continent for ’stronger leadership.’ The perception of having feeble leadership was a major factor in the push for the Lisbon Treaty, which went into effe...
Germany's second chamber: Europe 2020 timetable violates Lisbon Treaty
In a freshly published press release the European Chamber of the German Bundesrat has criticised the timetable of the Europe 2020 process foreseeing a decision at the European Council on 25-26 March 2010 as violating the rights of national legislatur...
A European own goal
Expectations were high when the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and Catherine Ashton was appointed head of EU foreign policy. One of the first questions asked at the press conference when Ashton was appointed, was whom the world should call on matte...
Nightmare Lisbon Treaty
Today, the Lisbon Treaty has been in force for 100 days. The result? A more democratic and open EU? A Union which voters have an easier time understanding and identifying themselves with? Simpler and more 'streamlined' institutions? Not quite.On it'...
What is an EU legislative act?
The debate about what the Lisbon Treaty actually means continues. Now the conference of EU committees of member states' parliaments (COSAC) has raised the following question:What is a "legislative acts" when it comes to the involvement of national a...
The forgotten Trio
Among the institutional changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, some have been more present in the media and public debate than others. Three months after the Treaty entered into force, we can still read at least a couple of articles a day about...
Making waves
Herman Van Rompuy has one major advantage over his fellow new EU appointee Catherine Ashton. His job as President of the European Council is entirely new. There were few expectations, except that he should not be so bold as to try and steal the lim...
A critical point
Well this is the EU at its finest, isn’t it? It talked the new Lisbon Treaty up a storm before it came into place. Taking a frankly rose-tinted view of what the new posts it contains will mean for foreign policy and external representation: allowi...
Lisbon means more power to EU Parliament, citizens, but some confusion too
The Lisbon treaty has been accused of all sorts of things by its opponents, but there is little doubt that it does include new provisions aimed at making European Union workings more transparent. In my view one the most crucial ones is that the Counc...
World Restless as EU Struggles with its Lisbon New Look
Whether it’s climate change, foreign policy or the increasingly alarming fiscal crisis, the European Union’s difficulties can be summed up in one word: disunity. After December 1, when the EU’s Lisbon treaty came into force, disu...
Obama's not the only one confused by Lisbon
The Obama "snub" continues to gather headlines in today's papers. PJ Crowley, the US Assistant Secretary of State, today confirmed that the uncertainty created by the new posts created under the Lisbon Treaty had been a major factor in Obama's decisi...
Lisbon Treaty : managing expectations
The new treaty entered into force on 1 December; Hermann van Rompuy took office on 1 January; Cathleen Ashton, while already High Representative for Foreign & Security Policy, had to face her Europêan Parliament Hearing on 11 January; and the ne...
“The Lisbon Treaty and national parliaments…
And a roundup. The Lisbon Treaty and national parliaments: In practice from Open Europe blog by Open Europe blog team The true effect of Lisbon, the practice not the theory, is beginning to come to light and, as some of us warned, it is far from pret...
The Lisbon Treaty and national parliaments: In practice
The true effect of Lisbon, the practice not the theory, is beginning to come to light and, as some of us warned, it is far from pretty.The House of Commons' European Scrutiny Committee, the body charged with sifting through EU legislation and holding...
Serious People say Direct democracy is bad for Europe!
Remember when Serious People (exemplified by the Economist's Charlemagne column) were mocking the EU as...
How will the European Parliament use its new decision-making powers after the Lisbon Treaty?
When the Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009, one of the big winners was the European Parliament which gained equal status with the Council of Ministers in most EU decision-making, including for the first time agricultural policy-making...
New Commission, new European Parliament, new Treaty
The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty at the end of last year, following eight years of institutional introspection, gives rise to mixed feelings for proponents of EU integration – relief and an element of exhaustion. The debate on the Treaty pushe...
Charlemagne fixing Europe?
I started reading the promising blog post on Charlemagne’s notebook, Europe realises that Lisbon does not fix Europe (5 January 2010), with a degree of anticipation. Noteworthy continental journalists had lamented the complexity of the Lisbon Treat...
Downright scandalous
We had been forced led to believe by the powers that be that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty (by hook and by crook) was meant to signal the end of the EU's internal wrangling and launch the EU into a new decade more outward looking and firmly f...
Secondary, but Still Important Players
Although the Treaty of Lisbon increases the role of the national parliaments of the Member States, they are not to be at the heart of the EU, but remain secondary players instead. The following gives an overview of the (renewed) functions of a nation...
2010 will be the Year of Parliaments
2010 will be the year when democratic accountability takes a front seat in the European Union. That is because the Lisbon Treaty gives bigger roles to the European Parliament, national parliaments and to civil society. The big winner from the Lisbon...
Commission consultation on citizens initiatives
Among the many reductions in democracy introduced n the Lisbon Treaty - along with increased...
To Err is Human, but is It also Convenient?
An assumption is that an ideal law grows out of morals, and corresponds to the principle of legitimate expectation. Therefore, it is specifically sad to already see that a Corrigenda on four pages has been adopted to the Treaty of Lisbon OJ C 290...
Democracy – A Win-Win Situation?
The EU bases on principles of democracy. One can find provisions on representative democracy, and participatory democracy in the constitutive treaties of the EU. Since the provisions lie in the constitutive treaties, one can also talk of constitut...
Denouncing the EU Lisbon Treaty ─ UK Tories and the long grass
In the blog post Gerald Warner and the Song of Songs of unsophistication (20 October 2009), I rejected Warner’s Telegraph column view that Britain could revoke the Lisbon Treaty and return to the ‘status quo ante’ after the amending treaty has...
A New Phase Of EU Development
As a result of recent coming into effect of the Lisbon Treaty on reform of the European Union the latter entered a new phase of its development. Though its institutions were never designed for foreign policy or military affairs, it is moving slowly t...
Lisbon Treaty = even more cash for MEPs
Amid all thee excitement over the EU bureaucrats' demands for an inflation-busting 3.7% payrise smack in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s, Bruno Waterfield at the Telegraph brings us news that according to an internal document seen b...
The US State Department on the Lisbon Treaty
We’ve seen all the intra-European arguments about Lisbon (now in force for a full fortnight) – what we really need is some expert extra-European opinion. So ta very much to Philip H Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eura...
Search for 18 ”ghost MEPs” ─ Scandal in the making?
Some EU member states failed to provide for the election of the additional members of the European Parliament at the European elections in June 2009, and the member states as a whole neglected to start the treaty amendment process as a separate exerc...
EU Council’s new Rules of Procedure
In a European Union, “in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen”, the real issues at stake and the diplomatic negotiations between the capitals remain opaque and seriously under-reported by natio...
State aid in EU Lisbon Treaty: Prohibition and derogations
The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009. According to Article 3(1)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the EU has exclusive competence in the establishing of the competition rules necessary for the fun...
New Rules of Procedure of the Council
The new Rules of Procedure of the Council have been published in the Official Journal. One of the important principles is that the Council will meet in public when it deliberates and votes on a draft legislative act.
Involvement of national parliaments under Lisbon: Barroso letter
A week ago, Barroso has sent out a letter explaining how the national parliaments will be involved under the Lisbon Treaty. To remember: Under the Protocol 2 of the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments have gained explicit scrutiny rights in EU law-m...
Better information? European Council 11-12 December 2009
First I looked at the fate of the noble principles of openness and representative democracy, as well as for comprehensive pre-summit information on the agenda, ahead of the first European Council meeting under the Lisbon Treaty and the new Rules of P...
European Council 10 to 11 December 2009
Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2009, the European Council will convene in Brussels, the last summit under the Swedish presidency of the Council of the European Union, but the first under its new Rules of Procedure. Some proclaimed that the Lisbon...
EU Council Secretary-General Pierre de Boissieu
When the Lisbon Treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009, the European Council and the Council of the European Union immediately took a number of decisions to put the treaty reforms into practice. There are still a few implementing decisions we h...
Lisbon Treaty: Changes in inter-institutional decision-making procedures
Sometimes I start writing a post because I find informative documents that I would like to share, and then I find little treasures like Annex 4 that you find below. But let's start from the beginning: The Lisbon Treaty has brought and will continue...
Out there in eurospace
Foreign Secretary David Miliband appeared before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee this afternoon to discuss developments in the EU, ahead of the formal six-monthly European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday this...
European Council 10 to 11 December 2009: Lisbon Treaty implementation
Our previous blog post Implementing the Lisbon Treaty (Swedish report) (9 December 2009) gave an overview of implementing decisions already officially published, as well as Grahnlaw posts, which present these decisions, with comments. There has been...
Implementing the Lisbon Treaty (Swedish report)
Grahnlaw has called on the Swedish Council presidency to report on the implementation of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. This has now happened in the form of an implementation report, submitted to the European Council meeting Thursday 10 and Friday 11 Dece...
The legitimacy of Lisbon
In a debate at University College London yesterday, the argument came forth from the anti-European speakers that the Lisbon treaty was illegitimate in a way that was not true of previous European treaties. It is hard to work out exactly what they me...
New European Commission ─ Official proposal
Even if news travel instantly in the wired world, more or less accurately, we should not discount the importance of official records. Just as there are national official gazettes (under different names), the European Union works under the rule of law...
Demonstrating Democracy
National Parliaments will play a crucial role in a more democratic EU...
Rules of Procedure of the European Council
The European Council has adopted and published its own Rules of Procedure. The Rules of Procedure deal with such matters as the preparation and follow-up to the proceedings of the European Council, the preparation of its meetings and its agenda,...
EU Lisbon Treaty implementation: Presidency of the Council
Article 16(9) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, lays down that the presidency of the Council configurations is held by member state representatives (ministers) in the Council on the basis of equal rotation. (The...
European Council’s Rules of Procedure (Contents: Articles 4 to 8)
We continue our presentation of the main points of the novel Rules of Procedure of the European Council. EUROPEAN COUNCIL DECISION of 1 December 2009 adopting its Rules of Procedure (2009/882/EU) was published in the Official Journal of the Europea...
The New Rules of Procedure of the European Council – Updated
I just found that with its decision of 1st December 2009, the European Council adopted its Rules of Procedure, having as a deriving point that the Treaty of Lisbon transforms the European Council into an institution of the European Union. The LIN...
European Council’s Rules of Procedure (Contents: Articles 1 to 3)
The new Rules of Procedure of the European Council are fairly short, 14 Articles on four pages. They build on the treaty provisions, while adding some detail outlining the work of the European Council, which has formally become an EU institution unde...
European Council’s new Rules of Procedure
Too boring? Not if you are interested in how the European Union really works. The European Commission still proposes and administers in the policy areas of the late European Community, and the European Parliament likes to quote how it has gained the...
Catherine Ashton High Representative of the (European) Union (official decision)
The political EU freaks have watched the preliminary grilling by the European Parliament of Baroness Ahston, but your humble blog servant has been looking for official references, useful for students mindful of their importance in academia, at least...
Herman Van Rompuy President of the European Council (official decision)
Here is the official version of one of the implementing decisions regarding the Lisbon Treaty, taken under the Swedish presidency of the EU Council. EUROPEAN COUNCIL DECISION of 1 December 2009 electing the President of the European Council (2009/8...
EU Council configurations (Lisbon Treaty implementation)
With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council formally became an institution of the European Union (Article 13(1) TEU; Article 15 TEU), and the treaty enshrines two new Council configurations: the General Affairs Council (GAC)...
EU Lisbon Treaty: Convoy principle strikes again (QMV)
„Warum einfach, wenn es auch kompliziert geht?“ The European Union is legendary for its ability to complicate matters when it acts or fails to act, especially in the fields of intergovernmental cooperation. The EU advances according to the convoy...
First Decisions under the Treaty of Lisbon
The European Council has adopted two decisions that are based on the new institutional arrangements in the Treaty of Lisbon that entered into force yesterday. The first decision provides that the Presidency of the Council, with the exception of the F...
Europe in blogs - Euroblogs (12): Pan-European blog reactions on the Lisbon Treaty
This Europe in blogs - Euroblogs edition is a little bit special because it's core content is to be found in yesterday's article on the Lisbon Treaty that I have now updated with European and national blog reactions in 18 official EU languages. But...
The European Citizens’ Initiative: 1 million signatures to have our voice heard.
By Pietro De Matteis As some of you might be aware of currently there is a public consultation with regards to the European Citizens’ Initiative. This has been introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and allows 1 million citizens from the EU to present to...
Lisbon Treaty and Changes to the Court of Justice
As you know by now, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force today, December 1st 2009. The Court of Justice has published this very useful short guide to the changes that the Lisbon Treaty makes to the Court of Justice itself,...
