On November 3, 2009, Czech President Vaclav Klaus ratified the Lisbon Treaty. The Czech Republic was the final Member State to ratify the Treaty, and the instrument of ratification was deposited in Rome on November 13, 2009. As a result of this final ratification and deposit in Rome, the Treaty of Lisbon will enter into force on December 1, 2009.
The Lisbon Treaty was designed to modernise and change the workings of the European Union (EU). The member states had been negotiating and discussing institutional changes for nearly a decade and will finally bring those negotiations to a close. When the EU was founded, it was designed for a smaller EU that had only six Member States and who was not faced with the challenges of recession, cross-border crime, climate change, security of energy supply, and the wealth of other global challenges that the EU faces today. Now made up of 27 Member States, the size of the European Union has grown immensely since it's creation, doubling in size in just the last five years. In order to operate more efficiently and effectively in the 21st century, they found it necessary to reform the workings of the EU in order to provide them with better tools to better serve the interests of their Citizens. Thus, the creation of the Lisbon Treaty.
The key provisions of the treaty include:
- Creation of a more democratic, transparent Europe which allows Citizens to have a direct say in policy making for the first time. It also allows the European Parliament to have a larger, more significant role, and promotes great involvement of national parliaments.
- Faster and more efficient decision-making
- A more stable and streamlined institutional framework, backed by the creation of a new position, President of the European Council
- Improving the life of Europeans by acting in several policy areas such as freedom, security and justice, terrorism, crime, energy, public health, civil protection, climate change, and much more.
- Achieving economic and monetary union with the euro as the EU's currency
- Strengthen coherence in external action and increase the role of Europe on the global stage through the development of a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
The European Commission has a number of helpful documents and information on their website regarding the Lisbon Treaty, at http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/index_en.htm. On this site you will find a downloadable PDF guide called "Your Guide to the Lisbon Treaty". Within this guide there is a time line entitled "The Road to Lisbon" that outlines the various treaties, constitutions and events that led to the Lisbon Treaty.
Read Scholarly Articles About the Lisbon Treaty and the "Road to Lisbon" In HeinOnline
There are a number of scholarly articles from HeinOnline's Law Journal Library that discuss the Lisbon Treaty as well as the treaties and constitutions that led to the Lisbon Treaty. Outlined below are a number of links to explore the scholarly writings about the Treaty and it's preceding events as outlined on the timeline in the European Commission guide.
Click on any link to explore the scholarly writings for that event. NOTE: Each link will generate a search in HeinOnline's Law Journal Library and return a list of results that match the search query.
Lisbon Treaty
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Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (2004)
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Treaty of Nice
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Treaty of Amsterdam
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Treaty of Maastricht
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Single European Act
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Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community and Euratom
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Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community
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