GRA 5913: The EU Policy Process Alexandra Grigore

The EU Reform Treaty – constitutional change?

To what extent will the constitution solve the problems of the EU with
regard to efficiency and democracy?

All too often, books about the European Union begin with the author writing something
along the lines of “it is a most opportune moment to write such a book because, once more,
Europe stands at a crossroads”. However, after the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union seems to
have passed through the crossroads and is, rather smoothly, moving along its path.
There is scarcely any debate about the basic shape of the political system itself, rather the
issue centres on what kind of European integration there should be.
The Treaty of Nice was unable to resolve the crucial questions for the future of the
enlarged Community. The general impression was that it did not ensure that EU institutions can
work efficiently after enlargement and that legitimacy and transparency were insufficiently
improved. Hence, further reforms were deemed necessary. A continuation of the reform process
was announced after Nice when European leaders agreed upon a new IGC in 2004, prepared by a
Convention launched in 2001. This resulted in the signature of a Constitutional Treaty (Rome,
October 2004) the ratification of which was derailed the following year by two referenda held in
France and the Netherlands.
The process of continuous revision of the “founding Treaties” has completed a new stage
with the signature, on 13 December 2007, of the Lisbon Treaty. After being rejected by the Irish
referendum on 12 June 2008, the treaty finally came into force on 1 December 2009. The Lisbon
Treaty entails mostly cosmetic changes to the failed Constitutional Treaty of 2004 and,
consequently, aims at the same broad objectives: facilitating decision-making in a Union with
vastly increased membership as a result of the two waves of accessions occurring during this
decade and endowing EU institutions with the means to push forward with the integration
process in new areas, while enjoying more legitimacy in the eyes of Europe’s citizens.
Being a text meant to salvage as much as possible of the draft Constitution, the Lisbon
Treaty aims at dealing with the same institutional challenges, that is: more qualified majority
voting, a new voting system in the Council giving the large members slightly more influence,

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rationalisation of the respective sizes of the Commission and Parliament, as well as efficiency
and effectiveness through the appointment of a longer-term Chairman of the European Council
and of a coordinator of foreign policy.
In order to understand to what extent the Lisbon Treaty will solve the problems of the EU
with regard to efficiency and democracy, it is important first to offer a brief overview of the
Treaty’s main elements of novelty in the institutional area.
Broadly speaking, the Lisbon Treaty marks a new step towards increasing the
prerogatives of the European Parliament, while seeking to streamline, increase coordination of
and render more transparent the activity of the Council, as well as to improve the effectiveness of
the European Commission.
With the Lisbon Treaty the European Parliament receives new competences and obtains a
strengthening of some of those it was already enjoying. The “co-decision” procedure, which puts
the Parliament at the same level with the Council as concerns the enactment of EU legislation, is
extended to 40 new areas; the Parliament is granted decision-making powers over all budget
expenditure; the Parliament has strengthened control over the decisions of legislative nature
which the Commission is empowered to make in keeping with delegations of authority granted to
it by the Council; the Parliament is in a position to block the adoption of those measures that it
deems inappropriate; it has enhanced influence in the designation of the European Commission;
it has the right to initiate revisions of the founding Treaties, as well as that to take part in the
amendment process.
As concerns the organisation of the European Parliament, the number of MEPs will be
limited to 751 (down from 785). The distribution of these seats among member countries will
follow the principle, for the first time explicitly mentioned, of „degressive proportionality”,
which offers small member states a better representation than that of larger member countries, in
the sense that the number of members of European Parliament elected by the former is larger
than the one which would result from their weight in the total population of the Union.
To these tangible changes concerning the role and organisation of the European
Parliament, one should add a novelty with strong symbolic meaning, concerning the fact that this
body is going to be deemed to consist of „representatives of EU citizens”. However,
progressively lower turn-outs in EP elections are a sign of concern regarding democracy.

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The Lisbon Treaty formally reiterates or adds several competences of a „constitutional”

nature which are bestowed upon the European Council. The most important of these are:
designating the own President; proposing the President of the European Commission and the
High Representative; deciding on the rotation system of member states for the Presidency of the
EU Council as well as for the designation of own citizens as members of the Commission;
converting, in some areas, the unanimous vote requirement in the EU Council into qualified
majority voting; or making the change from special legislative procedures to the ordinary
legislative procedure.
There are fewer novelties brought by the Treaty in respect of the Commission which will
be applicable as from the next mandate of this institution in 2014. They refer to the additions,
already mentioned above, concerning the election of the Commission’s President and to the fact
that the High Representative for External Affairs and Security Policy will automatically hold
also the position of member of the Commission, with the rank of Vice-President.
A major change is made with respect to the composition of the European Commission
starting with the 5-year mandate that will begin in 2014. In order to streamline the taking of
decisions, the number of Commission members, which is currently equal to that of the member
states, will be reduced to 2/3 of this number. As a result, some member states will no longer
have, over some periods of time, own citizens holding the position of member of the
Commission. The issue is that under the treaty, the unelected Commission proposes all EU law
which is then be imposed on all Member States. So there is a trade-off between efficiency and
democracy.
Conclusion: The Lisbon Treaty, a document of crucial importance for Europe’s future, is only
the latest stage in the process of continuous revision of the “founding Treaties”. It’s very raison
d’être is to salvage as much as possible of the failed Constitutional Treaties, aiming, just as the
former, to facilitate decision-making in a Union with vastly increased membership and to offer
EU institutions the means to extend the integration process to new areas, while restoring the
Union’s legitimacy in the eyes and minds of its citizens.
Extending qualified majority voting to a far wider number of policy areas than is
currently the case would of course be a big step towards more efficient decision-making in a
larger Union, but given the size of the challenge of enlargement will this be enough? Other types
of solutions than the ones explored so far may come to prove necessary. One such idea might be

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that of establishing an inner core of decision-making, as in the UN Security Council, and/or the
creation of constituencies of Member States, as in the IMF. The French economist Jacques Attali
wrote an interesting report before the latest enlargement in which he proposed that the maximum
number of delegations in the Council should be 20, maintaining that efficiency and effectiveness
are lost beyond this number. He proposed that the smaller Member States should be grouped in
constituencies, the countries in any one constituency having to decide how their representative in
the Council should vote. The largest member states, of which France of course, would be
constituencies of their own. The new member states, for their part, are generally opposed to
moves that would allow the large countries to dominate EU decision-making.
EU’s final shape will be the product of a process of permanent constitutional
development, in which the central factor in changing mentalities will be the sole obligation that
all sides adhere to the pact concluded at each step of the way, leading onwards to increasingly
advanced stages and to ever closer Union between the Member States.

Literature
1. EurActiv.com, The Treaty of Lisbon http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/treaty-
lisbon/article-163412
2. Gros, Daniel, Ben Crum, and Anna Turmann Enlargement – A Process rather than a
Point in Time, CEPS Policy Brief No.51, April 2004
3. Kurpas, Sebastian, and Justus Schönlau Deadlock avoided, but sense of mission lost? The
Enlarged EU and its Uncertain Constitution, CEPS Policy Brief No.92, February 2006
4. Laursen, Finn (2008) The Rise and Fall of the Constitutional Treaty. Leiden: Nijhoff
Publ.
5. Mayhew, Alan A certain idea of Europe: Can European integration survive eastern
enlargement?, Sussex European Institute, Working Paper No.93, April 2007