Documents Treaty of Lisbon 58 results

"Given the controversies and difficulties which preceded the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, it is easy to forget that the Treaty is a complex legal document in need of detailed analysis for its impact to be fully understood. Jean-Claude Piris, the Director General of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, provides such an analysis, looking at the historical and political contexts of the Treaty, its impact on the democratic framework of the EU and its provisions in relation to substantive law. Impartial legal analysis of the EU's functions, its powers and the treaties which govern it make this the seminal text on the most significant recent development in EU law."

"This article deals with the future of Social Europe, focusing in particularon the changes that the Lisbon Treaty proposes. It compares the legal position of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the now defunct Constitutional Treaty vis-à-vis the still uncertain Treaty of Lisbon, to conclude that although the Treaty of Lisbon enhances the legal status of the EU Charter, it actually diminishes the legal status of the fundamental rights it includes. It also presents other social provisions contained in the Lisbon Treaty taken over from the failed Constitution to be more cosmetic than substantial. Finally, it reflects on the ECJ interpretation of the Treaty's provisions in the controversial Laval and Viking cases, which considers to be a threat to the entire acquis communautaire social."

"As the successor to the decade-long Lisbon agenda, Europe 2020 is the European Union's 10-year strategy for ‘smart', ‘sustainable' and ‘inclusive' growth. This article analyses the ‘governance architecture' of this new agenda, and, more particularly, its social dimension. Insofar as Europe 2020 has a social dimension it is located within a suite of thematic ‘flagship initiatives', as well as within a policy coordination framework that, while building upon the Lisbon agenda's governance architecture, now forms part of the European Semester framework. Whereas the flagship initiatives continue a long tradition of the deployment of non-legislative instruments and EU funds towards the EU's social goals, the role to be played by the ‘open method of coordination' as a ‘new' post-Lisbon form of EU social governance remains unclear. Indeed, the risk is that political energy will be concentrated on policy coordination as a means of strengthening EU economic governance rather than as a vehicle for articulating a progressive social policy vision. "

"On 1 December 2009 the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. Although often described as primarily technical, it significantly amended the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and the old EC Treaty (now the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU). The authors' aim in this book is to explore what the Treaty means for social law and social policy at the European level.

The first part of the book on the general framework looks – at a time of financial crisis – for new foundations for Europe's Social market economy, questions the balance between fundamental social rights and economic freedoms, analyses the role of the now binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, maps the potential impact of the horizontal clauses on social policy and addresses the possibilities for social partners to enlarge their role in labour law and industrial relations.

The second part, on the social framework of the Treaty, focuses on the development of the Union's competences. In it the authors evaluate the consequences of the new general framework on social competences, analyse the evolution of the principle of subsidiarity and its impact in the new Treaty, look at the coordination of economic policies in the light of fundamental rights, and analyse the adoption in the Treaty of a new architecture for services of general interest. "

"Calls to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by referendum have been countered with arguments about the Treaty's 'non-constitutional' nature. Against this backdrop, this article asks how much 'constitution' is left in the new document. To answer this question, I assert that little is gained by classifying the Treaty in toto as a 'European constitution' or as the epitome of its failure. Instead, I develop an analytical framework that disaggregates the concept of constitution into its formal, material and symbolic functions, and systematically assess how far Lisbon would strengthen (or weaken) Europe's constitutional quality. The article suggests that, rather than transferring new competences to Brussels or making a constitutional saut qualitatif, Lisbon moderately bolsters the Treaties' formal functions; yet, in contrast to the Constitutional Treaty it adds little in material terms and is a decisive setback symbolically. Calls for ratification by referendum justified by the reform's extent are therefore ill-founded."

"The article investigates the institutional and policy choices regarding the EU's relations with the countries and regions covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). It juxtaposes the notion of special relationship inaugurated by the Lisbon Treaty to three models for organizing relations with proximate countries: pre-accession, the European Economic Area (EEA) and association. The convergence-access paradigm is found to be the basic pillar of the EU approach. The article brings in a series of dilemmas concerning the design and the implementation of the ENP as well as perceptions from selected partner countries. As a potential way to manage tensions and dilemmas inherent in the EU strategy, the article proposes an altogether novel dimension: decentred integration geared towards polity-building that could partially delink convergence and access. The last section maps out four scenarios for the future directions of the ENP that cover the whole continuum from piecemeal enhancement of the policy to the creation of a European Partnership Area underpinned by a new tier of institutions."