Commission communication - A basic Treaty for the European Union
Date: 2000-07-12
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: European treaties, Treaty on European Union, intergovernmental conference (EU)

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

Brussels, 12.7.2000
COM(2000) 434 final

COMMISSION COMMUNICATION

A BASIC TREATY FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION

In its contribution to preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference,1 dated 10 November
2000, and subsequently in its Opinion on the amendment of the Treaties which it presented on
26 January 2000 in accordance with Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union,2 the
Commission stressed the benefits of reorganising the Treaties. It also saw "considerable merit"
in dividing the Treaties into two separate parts. "The Treaty texts would become simpler and
more readable, something which is widely felt to be necessary. Such a distinction would also
make it possible to introduce a less cumbersome mechanism for amending the implementing
instruments than that currently in place for Treaty revisions and one better suited to the
prospect of a doubling of the number of Member States".

At the same time the Commission declared its intention of commissioning a feasibility study
into reorganising the Treaties in this way and, depending on the results of this study, of
presenting proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference.

On 15 May 2000, the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence
presented its report on the reorganisation of the Treaties to the Commission.3 Without going
into the content and the scope of the provisions of the draft Basic Treaty and the annexes to it,
the Commission believes that broadly speaking the technical work of the Florence Institute
demonstrates the feasibility of a reorganisation of the Treaties. Although it is not realistic to
expect
the Commission nevertheless
recommends that a procedural decision should be adopted by the Intergovernmental
Conference so that future work on recasting the Treaties can start in due course, without
interfering with the current enlargement process.

this work to be completed in the course of 2000,

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THE NEED TO REORGANISE THE TREATIES

Ever since the Treaty of Paris of 18 April 1951 establishing the European Coal and
Steel Community, Europe has been continuously evolving, notably through the 1957
Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community and the European
Atomic Energy Community, the Single European Act, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty
establishing the European Union and,
the Treaty of Amsterdam. Four
successive enlargements have increased the number of Member States from six to
fifteen.

lastly,

The "primary legislation" of the Union and the Communities is therefore made up of
ten Treaties and a large number of Protocols. The four basic Treaties contain over
these
700 articles, some of them fundamental and others more technical. All

Adapting the Institutions to make a success of enlargement, contribution to preparations for the
conference, Commission communication of 10 November 1999 (COM (1999) 592).
Adapting the Institutions to make a success of enlargement, Commission Opinion of 26 January 2000
in accordance with Article 48 of the TEU (COM (2000) 34).
The report has been published on the Commission's Internet site:
in French: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/repoflo_fr.pdf
in English: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/repoflo_en.pdf
in German: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/repoflo_de.pdf
The model for a Basic Treaty of the European Union can be found:
in French: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/draftreaty_fr.pdf
in English: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/draftreaty_en.pdf
in German: http://europa.eu.int/comm/igc2000/offdoc/draftreaty_de.pdf

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provisions, the fruit of fifty years of European integration, form a complex and not
very coherent whole. As the Commission pointed out in its Opinion for the previous
Intergovernmental Conference,4 the Treaties are becoming progressively less easy to
read and to understand.

Simplifying the Treaties

Admittedly, the commitment of the people to Europe and their understanding of
European issues do not depend solely, or even mainly, on the quality of the texts of
the Treaties. But the fact remains that existing structures need simplifying. It is very
much in the Union's interests to have basic texts which reflect as logically and as
accurately as possible the balances on which European integration is based.

This question was raised at the last Intergovernmental Conference. The Amsterdam
Treaty simplified the Treaties to some extent by repealing and deleting provisions
which had lapsed or were obsolete and renumbering all the articles.

Consolidated versions of the two most important Treaties, the Treaty on European
Union (EU) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (EC), were also
drawn up, although they are only intended as a guide and have no legal force.

These operations helped to simplify the Treaties. However, they did not remedy the
fact that the Treaties combine fundamental provisions with more technical provisions,
sometimes differing greatly in importance, and the essential provisions are still
scattered through different treaties.

in train an exercise aimed at
The last Intergovernmental Conference also set
consolidating the Treaties (cf. Declaration No 42 annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty),
which also considered the possibility of merging them. This technical exercise
revealed the scope for rationalisation. Eliminating redundant clauses in the various
treaties and re-sorting their provisions on a more logical basis also helped to achieve
greater readability. However, the treaties produced by this merger remain long and
complicated,5 and still combine provisions of differing importance.

In favour of a Basic Treaty of the European Union

To go further, the Commission asked the European University Institute to analyse the
provisions of the EU and EC Treaties and draw up a basic text containing only the
essential clauses, without the implementing provisions. This operation leads to a Basic
Treaty that is simple and easy to understand. The European Parliament has also called
for the Treaties to be simplified and consolidated in a single text comprising two
parts, the first containing constitutional provisions, the second the other areas covered
by the existing treaties. 6

The Commission notes, however, that the reorganisation of the Treaties is justified
regardless of changes to the amendment procedures. For this reason, the Report

Reinforcing political Union and preparing for enlargement, Commission Opinion to the 1996 IGC,
point 20.
Merging the EU Treaty and the EC Treaty alone would produce a text with 361 articles.
European Parliament Resolution A5-0086/2000 of 13 April 2000, point 31.1.

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of the European University Institute does not consider the question of amendment
methods.

2.

REMARKS ON THE APPROACH PROPOSED BY THE EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE

The Commission asked the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute to
look into the legal feasibility of restructuring the Treaties without departing from the law as
it stands. The study concludes that such an operation is feasible. The method followed, of
course, required the Robert Schuman Centre to make a number of choices. The fact that the
Commission broadly approves the approach taken by the Florence Institute does not
prejudge its position on the choices made in order to meet the objective of maintaining
the law as it stands, or on the content and scope of the provisions in the draft Treaty and
the annexes to it. The Commission is making only the following comments.

(a) Overall architecture

1.

The report sets out the approach adopted in some detail. We shall confine ourselves
here to describing the basic choices made:

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the operation is concerned solely with the EU and EC Treaties ;

the present Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty, as amended by
the Treaty of Amsterdam) is replaced by a Basic Treaty of the European
Union;

this Basic Treaty will include all the provisions of the EU and EC Treaties
which are considered to be fundamental, arranged in logical order;

the provisions of the current EU Treaty which are not included in the Basic
Treaty (i.e. the provisions for implementing the common foreign and security
policy and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) will be the subject
of two Special Protocols annexed to the Basic Treaty;

the EC Treaty, without
the provisions included in the Basic Treaty, will
continue to exist or may be annexed to this treaty in the form of a special
Protocol in the same way as the two other Special Protocols mentioned above.

The Commission supports this approach which,
in producing a new Treaty
founded on the law as it stands, works on the assumption that the pillar structure will
be kept.

2.

The Commission is not, however,
reorganisation of the Treaties to all primary legislation.

ruling out

the possibility of extending the

Leaving aside the ECSC Treaty, which expires on 23 July 2002, a comprehensive
approach would involve also examining the Treaty establishing the European Atomic

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Energy Community. Without expressing an opinion on whether it
is politically
the
appropriate to include the Euratom Treaty in the reorganisation exercise,
Commission notes that, from a technical point of view, the method applied after the
last Intergovernmental Conference (cf. point 1.3. above) might conceivably be used.
in the Basic Treaty had been
After the general institutional provisions set out
removed, the remaining clauses of the Euratom Treaty could be annexed to the Basic
Treaty in the form of a Protocol, in the same way as the Special Protocols on the
second and third pillars.

The reorganisation of the Treaties should also include the accession treaties and the
protocols attached to them. Most of these provisions lapsed or became obsolete, of
course, at the end of the transitional periods. The accession treaties nevertheless
include a number of permanent provisions, such as the protocols relating to the
application of Community law in certain territories.

Incorporating the still relevant provisions of the accession treaties into the revised
Treaties of the future would allow the accession treaties to be formally repealed. Not
only would this be simpler, it would also eliminate the need to translate these obsolete
treaties into the languages of the new Member States as they joined. In the past, all
the texts of primary law which existed legally were translated into the languages of
acceding states, even if they no longer had any legal effect (cf. Article 176 of the Act
of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden).

(b) The choice of provisions which should be included in the Basic Treaty

The choice of articles to be included in the Basic Treaty is, of course, a matter which
merits the most careful attention. The authors of the report by the European
University Institute in Florence concluded that it would be preferable to set out in the
Basic Treaty the essential aims of each of the Union's policies.

Unlike a constitution, which merely defines the structure of the public authorities and
their powers as well as the fundamental freedoms and rights of the people, the
Treaties establishing the Communities and the Union include, sometimes in detail, the
objectives of the policies which the European institutions are to follow. These policies
thus form part of the basic pact between the Member States of the Union. The authors
of the Florence report felt that they should have a place in the Basic Treaty.

The Report includes in the Basic Treaty only provisions relating to the composition
and functions of the institutions and voting procedures. It might be possible, for
example, to add the provisions on the powers of the Court of Justice, the operation of
international agreements. The
the conclusion of
the codecision procedure or
Commission also feels that the provisions on the territorial application of the Treaties,
the languages to be used and the seats of the institutions should be included in the
Basic Treaty.

(c) Limits of the law as it stands

The European University Institute's Report endeavours to reorganise the Treaties in
accordance with the law as it stands. Despite the appeal of the attached model
Treaty produced by the Institute, it must be acknowledged that the need to keep to
existing law tends to make the text unwieldy, largely because the scope of certain

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provisions originating in the EC Treaty must be limited when they are transferred to
the Basic Treaty. Clause 13, for example, guarantees that a citizen who writes to an
institution will have an answer in the same language, while stating that this right
applies when the citizen is writing "within the framework of the EC Treaty"; Clause
52 states that the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions
will assist the Council and the Commission "in the tasks entrusted to the European
Community". Clause 58 allows the European Parliament to adopt a motion of censure
against the Commission in respect of its "European Communities" activities, etc.

In the Commission's opinion, the reorganisation of the Treaties should also
make minor adjustments to improve the quality of the texts, but without
altering their overall balance. The objective of maintaining the law as it stands
is and will continue to be essential for the Commission.

3.

CONCLUSION

The Commission proposes that the Conference should decide whether work should start on the
reorganisation and simplification of the Treaties in the light of the technical work done by the
European University Institute in Florence and the work on merging the Treaties carried out in
accordance with Declaration 42 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.

The Commission does not think it is realistic for the present Intergovernmental
Conference to carry out this reorganisation of the Treaties in view of the timetabling
constraints.

On the other hand, the political interest in this exercise is justification for the present
Intergovernmental Conference to decide on a procedure and a timetable for completing
this task. At all events this work should in no way interfere with the enlargement
process.

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