Treaty of Nice

The Treaty of Nice is a treaty amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities, i.e. the EC Treaty , the EURATOM Treaty and the ECSC Treaty , which was still in force when it was signed , and some of them related legal acts. The most important change was that in many areas, decisions by qualified majority instead of unanimity became the rule.

The treaty was adopted by the heads of state and government of the European Union on the occasion of their meeting in the European Council in Nice on December 11, 2000 and signed on February 26, 2001. It came into force on February 1, 2003.

Since the ECSC Treaty had expired on 23 July 2002, all the amendments to the ECSC Treaty provided for by the Nice Treaty were irrelevant , with the exception of the Protocol on the Financial Consequences of the Expiry of the ECSC Treaty and the Research Fund for Coal and Steel . Noteworthy is the "Declaration (No. 23) on the future of the Union" attached to the Treaty of Nice , which already introduced the next change in Nice (so-called post-Nice process), since the "Amsterdam left-overs" are still going on were not processed. The following four questions should be dealt with in this discussion: the delimitation of competences, the role of national parliaments, the simplification of the Treaties and the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union , which is outside the Treaties and which was first solemnly proclaimed on 9 November 2001 was, see formerly OJ. EG C 364 of December 18, 2000.

The legal status created by the Treaty of Nice was only changed again on December 1, 2009 by the Treaty of Lisbon . Previously, in the summer of 2005, the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe failed , which was supposed to repeal all earlier founding and revision treaties and thus also the Treaty of Nice (Art. IV-437 EU-VV).

Distribution of votes in the Council of the EU since November 1, 2004 or January 1, 2007; for comparison, square-root law
country	Population (million)	be right	comparison
Germany	82.5	29	33.0
France	62.5	29	28.7
United Kingdom	59.4	29	28.0
Italy	57.7	29	27.6
Spain	39.4	27	22.8
Poland	38.6	27	22.6
Romania	21.7	14th	16.9
Netherlands	15.8	13	14.4
Greece	10.6	12	11.8
Czech Republic	10.3	12	11.7
Belgium	10.2	12	11.6
Hungary	10.0	12	11.5
Portugal	9.9	12	11.4
Sweden	8.9	10	10.8
Austria	8.1	10	10.3
Bulgaria	7.3	10	9.8
Slovakia	5.4	7th	8.5
Denmark	5.3	7th	8.4
Finland	5.2	7th	8.3
Lithuania	3.7	7th	7.0
Ireland	3.7	7th	7.0
Latvia	2.4	4th	5.6
Slovenia	2.0	4th	5.1
Estonia	1.4	4th	4.3
Cyprus	0.8	4th	3.3
Luxembourg	0.4	4th	2.3
Malta	0.4	3	2.3
EU	483.6	345	345.0

History and details

The composition and functioning of the organs of the European Communities had changed little from 1957 to the 1990s, although the number of member states had increased from the original 6 to 15 and the European Union performed significantly more tasks as a result of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 than it had to Beginning of integration.

At the end of the 1990s, due to the planned eastward expansion of the European Union, an increase in the number of member states from 15 to up to 27, i.e. almost double that, was to be expected. Without reform, this would have burst the institutional framework of the Union and endangered its ability to act : In a Union of 27, the European Commission would have had 33 members according to the rules passed in Maastricht and the number of members of the European Parliament would have risen to more than 800. In particular, maintaining the principle of unanimity of decisions in the Council would hardly have allowed decisions with 27 members.

The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam should have made the European Union “fit” for enlargement, but at that time the member states could not agree on all the necessary institutional reforms. Amsterdam brought a strengthening of the European Parliament and a reduction in size to 700 seats after the eastward expansion. In addition, after the first enlargement, the commission should only be constituted by one EU commissioner per member state. It was also decided to slightly expand the areas in which majority decisions should be possible in the Council. Nevertheless, the reforms were not sufficient, especially in the case of the size and composition of the Commission, which would also increase to 27 members after Amsterdam through an enlargement with 12 states and would have to struggle more with efficiency problems. The renewed expansion of the majority vote had to be decided, as well as the weighting of the votes of the member states in the Council. In addition, the size of the parliament should also be renegotiated. The so-called through this Amsterdam left-overs has become necessary Intergovernmental Conference began on 14 February 2000 on the reform of the European treaties and should come to the meeting of the European Council of 7 to 9 December 2000 in Nice to a conclusion. The question of the future distribution of votes in the Council remained open until this meeting. After sometimes tough negotiations, especially about this weighting of votes (Belgium, which received one vote less [12] than its neighbor Netherlands [13], for example only by admitting Declaration No. 22 on the European Council's meeting place: “From 2002 a meeting of the European Council takes place under each Presidency in Brussels. As soon as the Union has eighteen members, all meetings of the European Council will take place in Brussels. ”The Council was finally able to agree under the pressure of the upcoming enlargement. The drafted contract was signed on February 26, 2001, it came into force on February 1, 2003, and the voting rules in the Council have been in effect since November 1, 2004.

In spite of heated discussions, the Commission's regulation remained with the provisions decided in Amsterdam. From 2005 each EU member state should only be allowed to have one member. The composition of the European Parliament, however, has been reorganized. The enlargement of the EU to 27 member states should set a new maximum of 732 seats. The downsizing of the parliament should include a total of 91 seats, only Germany and Luxembourg should be allowed to keep their seats. The powers of the European Parliament have been expanded to implement the democratization of the Union that has long been called for . With the exception of certain areas such as the common foreign and security policy or tax, asylum and immigration policy, which still required unanimity, Council decisions were now taken by qualified majority. For this purpose, the number of votes was determined for the individual states (see table). For a qualified majority, 232 of the 321 votes or, after the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, 258 of the 345 votes, were required, as well as the approval of two thirds of the states or, for decisions that were to be taken on the proposal of the Commission, the approval of a simple one Majority of states. In addition, a member could request that it be verified that this majority represented at least 62% of the EU population; if this was not the case, the decision was deemed not to have come about.

The negotiated z. The weighting of votes for the Council, which in some cases seemed quite arbitrary, was subsequently the greatest criticism of the Treaty of Nice. On this point, the European Constitutional Convention proposed the introduction of the double majority procedure , which only succeeded against great opposition from Spain and Poland, which were particularly favored in the Treaty of Nice. After the failure of the Constitutional Treaty , the principle of double majority was adopted in the Lisbon Treaty and has been in force since 2017 without exceptions.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was also proclaimed at the Nice Conference , but it will only become legally binding with the Treaty of Lisbon.

ratification

In all Member States except Ireland , the treaty was ratified by the national parliaments. Since the constitution in Ireland could only be changed through a referendum and the Treaty of Nice affected the Irish as well as most other constitutions, a referendum was held there in May 2001. The contract was surprisingly rejected with low participation. The Irish government decided to hold another referendum on October 19, 2002, prepared with an extensive media campaign (television interviews with Václav Havel and other celebrities). In the second attempt, the Irish people also agreed.

criticism

The Commission and the European Parliament were disappointed that the Intergovernmental Conference , has not accepted many of its proposals to reform the institutional structure or the introduction of new Community powers, such as the appointment of a European Public Prosecutor. The European Parliament threatened to pass a resolution against the treaty. Although it has no formal veto power, the Italian Parliament threatened that it would not ratify without the support of the European Parliament. Ultimately, however, this did not happen and the European Parliament approved the treaty.

Many argue that the pillar structure retained by the treaty is overly complicated, that the separate treaties should be merged into one treaty, that the three (now two) separate legal entities of the Communities should be merged, and that the European Community and the European Union should be merged, whereby the European Union should have legal personality . The German regions also called for a clearer separation of the Union's powers from the member states.

The Nice Treaty did not deal with the question of including the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty, which was also left to the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference following opposition from the United Kingdom.

Chronological order

Sign
in force
contract

1948
1948
Brussels
Pact

1951
1952
Paris

1954
1955
Paris
Treaties

1957
1958
Rome

1965
1967
merger
agreement

1986
1987
Single
European Act

1992
1993
Maastricht

1997
1999
Amsterdam

2001
2003
Nice

2007
2009
Lisbon

European Communities

Three pillars of the European Union

European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM)

→

←

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

Contract expired in 2002

European Union (EU)

European Economic Community (EEC)

European Community (EC)

→

Justice and Home Affairs (JI)

Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (PJZS)

←

European Political Cooperation (EPC)

→

Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)

←

Western Union (WU)

Western European Union (WEU)

dissolved on July 1, 2011

literature

Klemens H. Fischer: The Treaty of Nice. Text and comment. 2nd edition Baden-Baden, 2003
Thomas runners (ed.): Nice Treaty - the EU-25 . BpB, 2004, ISBN 3-89331-547-0
S. Hölscheidt, KO Miederer: The Treaty of Nice - The EU before enlargement to the east, Scientific Services of the German Bundestag, "The Current Concept", 2001/2002, 97-101,

Web links

Commons : Treaty of Nice - collection of images, videos and audio files