Countdown

The countdown has begun for the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The last manoeuvres are going ahead in the EU institutions to ensure that as from 1st December the “common home” can rely on a framework of consolidated rules to manage the EU27 in a more transparent and efficient way.“Stable” EU President and High Representative. The recent nominations of the Belgian Herman Van Rompuy and the British Catherine Ashton respectively as President of the European Council, in office for two a half years, and as High Representative for foreign policy and common security, have filled some of the key positions in the EU power structure. In recent weeks the President of the future Commission for the period until 2014 has also been nominated: the Portuguese statesman José Manuel Barroso has been reconfirmed in the post and is now putting together his team of Commissioners in common accord with national governments. The individual members, designated by the Executive, together with the High Representative who will also be Vice-President of the Commission, will then have to pass the hurdle of the auditions and vote of the European Parliament, before entering into office presumably between January and February next year.In force after a long process. So on 1st December the obstacle-strewn political and legal process launched within the EU at the turn of the new millennium, aimed at redesigning the whole normative/institutional framework of the Community, will finally reach its goal: the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. At the time the process began the EU was at the dawn of the “great enlargement” that would lead the Union to 15 and then to 27 member states, perhaps even more in future. That explains how urgent it was to reform the EU institutions (Council, Parliament, Commission) and better define the internal procedures and policies managed in common accord between states, so as to respond to the needs of citizens in a globalized context, very different from that in which the Community had been born with the Treaties of Rome (1957) and its successive amplifications and revisions (Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice). The attempt to equip Europe with a Constitution having failed in 2004-2005, the EU leaders then signed the Lisbon Treaty on 13 December 2007. Not without difficulties and setbacks, the Treaty finally overcame the hurdle of ratification in all member states in recent weeks.Space for citizens, dialogue with the churches. The new Treaty modifies the previous treaties and responds to four explicit needs. The first is to create a more democratic and transparent Europe by redistributing powers between European and national levels, by reinforcing the role of the European Parliament in Strasbourg (greater legislative and budgetary powers) and of national parliaments (principle of subsidiarity), and by enabling Europeans to make their voice heard through the “citizens’ initiative”. In this case it is possible to collect a million signatures among citizens of a certain number of member states to pressure the Commission to present new common laws. In this Europe closer to citizens, the “open, transparent and regular” dialogue with the churches and religious communities is also defined (article 17) and respect for their juridical status guaranteed “by virtue of national law”.Majority decisions. The second need is that of realizing a more efficient Europe by simplifying the methods of work and voting mechanisms, and by equipping the EU with more modern institutions with wider powers to intervene in sectors of paramount interest for the Union. As for the decision-making process, Lisbon enlarges the field of decisions taken by qualified majority within the European Council, and reduces the power of veto that so many times in the past has blocked the process of integration. With the exception of some fields that remain the exclusive or principal competence of national governments (family policy, education, social welfare, tax…), the EU’s possibility to intervene in the sector of “freedom, security and justice” will be reinforced, so as to be able to tackle such issues as immigration, security and the crackdown on organized crime; EU powers in the areas of energy policy, environmental safeguard, public health and research will also be extended.Rights, solidarity, foreign policy. The third major chapter of innovation is that of rights, civil liberties, and solidarity. In this sense the Treaty incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights (civil, political, economic and social), signed at Nice in 2000 and that now becomes legally binding. The Treaty, lastly, defines the rules and instruments to enable the EU to play a role as a protagonist on the international scene. To this end it institutes the office of High Representative for Foreign Policy, who also assumes the role of Vice-President of the Commission, coordinates the foreign ministers of the 27 and heads up the EU diplomatic service (still to be set up), with embassies throughout the world.