The Treaty of Lisbon will be the blueprint for running the European Union for the foreseeable future. Gordon Brown says there should be no changes for ten years. This tells us how important it is in setting out how 27 (or more) European states and 480 million European citizens will be governed.

2. Replaces Constitution.

It replaces the Constitution which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in referendums in 2005 and which nine EU governments did not ratify.

3. Same in substance as Constitution.

The Treaty of Lisbon is substantially the same as the Constitution. See EU Leaders spill the beans on how they planned to mislead the people of Europe.

4. Each member state must go with decisions of the majority.

In 50 areas of policy the UK will lose its power to refuse to take part in policy decisions. (It will lose its veto because QMV - qualified majority voting - will replace the unanimity rule in these areas.)

5. Quicker decisions and voting nightmare.

The plus side of this: because there will be more majority decisions it will be quicker to get policies agreed. This is called "streamlining decision-making." This is fine for the countries that support a new policy, but the downside is that some countries will be forced to implement laws or decisions which they disagree with.
The planned voting procedure for majority voting is the opposite of streamlined. It will be a bureaucratic nightmare - incredibly and unnecessarily complex. See QMV under the Treaty of Lisbon. It will take mathematicians to calculate the result. Even if ordinary citizens are allowed to know who voted for what they will find it nearly impossible to understand what is happening when they look at a declared vote. Such a bizarre and complex voting procedure should be rejected. Voting procedures should be fair, quick and easy to understand. See "a sensible voting system" in The European Union and You.

6. Doubts about subsidiarity

The Treaty of Lisbon will not guarantee of taking decisions at national or local level where possible. In fact it makes the opposite more likely.
Since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 the EU has been committed to the idea of taking decisions at the lowest practical level - something it calls "subsidiarity". Unfortunately the EU has no idea how to do this (or perhaps intention) because its principle aim is to "integrate" its member states. In practice this means passing more and more decision-making to Brussels where the power of the EU is rapidly growing.

How subsidiarity rights will be lost

The Treaty of Lisbon re-states a commitment to subsidairity but then sets up arrangements with what it calls "shared competences" and "supporting competences". These are policy areas where the EU can claim a right to make decisions. The EU's version of subsidairity is not to grant any guaranteed areas of subsidairity but to give member states an unequal opportunity to fight to keep decisions at national level. Member states are to be granted the right to argue that they can do things better, but the final decision will be that of the EU.
This is top down decision-making. An appeal to the European Court of Justice would be likely to fail as the ECJ's job is to interpret the treaties. These commit the EU to "ever closer union". This means ever-decreasing subsidiarity.
Matters such as tourism, education, sport and culture (and others) should be clearly marked for member states to do with as they wish. This would leave the door open for co-operation with member states whenever we wished, without getting involved in any arbitration procedure with the EU. It would be true subsidairity.
For comparison, the Constitution of the United States grants all powers to member states that are not specified, in the Constitution, as belonging to the United States. There are no "in-between" categories of power. The EU needs clarity. - See Reform the EU. This topic is also discussed in The European Union and You.

7. No limit to enlargement

The Lisbon Treaty does nothing to limit enlargement - the adding of more countries to the EU and allowing more migration of people across the EU. This may be good for some but certainly creates difficulties too. These include pressure on public services, the loss of needed workers in poorer countries, sudden and unpredictable housing shortages, the transfer of unemployment from states where there are very high levels of unemployment (and often low wages) to the better off countries.

8. The Lisbon Treaty reduces trust in the European Union

In 2001 EU leaders themselves acknowledged that openness, accountability, democracy and "not cutting deals in secret " were desirable reforms. Their approach to developing the Treaty of Lisbon shows hostility to open, accountable democratic government. The way this treaty has been planned to appear not to be the Constitution was an attempt to deceive the electorate. The way it was contrived in secret with, even now (January 2008), no complete text of the treaties as they will appear when they are amended by the Treaty of Lisbon was unhelpful. It was a clear attempt to exclude the public from knowledge and participation in the formulation of the most important EU agreement this century. The chosen procedure was one more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy. See EU leaders sow confusion.
The Treaty of Lisbon totally fails to address the real problems faced by the EU. It does not bring about any of the reforms which EU leaders themselves identified as desirable in 2001. See Reform the EU.

9. The needed increase in democracy is made even more necessary

The Treaty of Lisbon makes one or two feeble gestures towards giving more democracy. For example, citizens themselves can request that a law be passed. All we have to do is collect a million signatures and then the Commission will decide if it will agree to let the proposal be considered. Real power to the people or a hollow joke? Another gesture is to allow parliaments of member states an extra couple of weeks to argue for the right to legislate on a topic the EU has proposed that it will legislate on. Big deal!

Less democracy. The most undemocratic element of the EU is the very powerful Commission. This body is appointed, not elected. It is independent of any minister, body or state by the terms of EU treaties. At the moment the leader of each member state of the EU nominates a person to serve as a Commissioner (a person in charge of a major policy area such as trade). From 2014, by the terms of the Treaty of Lisbon, the number of Commissioners will be drastically reduced. This will mean that member states will have even less representation on this key body with not even an appointed policy chief.

10. The superstate idea is still being developed by the EU

One of the chief complaints against the EU is that it is becoming a superstate. EU leaders are very sensitive to this point and that is why they claimed that the "constitutional concept" has been "abandoned". In fact, they have only attempted to remove the appearance of being a state. See Angela Merkel's explicit acknowledgement of this fact in her comment in the section EU Leaders spill the beans on how they planned to mislead the people of Europe and the Laeken Declaration.

The EU is moving towards being a superstate by passing more and more power to EU central authorities in Brussels. This has been the plan since 1957 and The Treaty of Rome. Succeeding treaties (including The Treaty on European Union and The Treaty Establishing the European Community) continue to repeat the aim of "ever closer union" - union without limit, total unification. To step back from this aim and become simply a co-operating association of European states the Treaty of Lisbon would need to remove the commitment to ever closer union from the two treaties it is seeking to amend. And, as mentioned above, it would need to ensure true subsidiarity in contrast to the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon.

11. The Treaty of Lisbon is an insufficient document
NOTE The following comment was written early January 2008. As reported elsewhere in this website the situation has at last moved on.

The Treaty of Lisbon is not a treaty as normally understood. It is not a complete, coherent, stand-alone, intelligible document. It lacks about two thirds of the text needed for full understanding. It is a set of instructions for changing and making additions to two existing treaties. Only when the amendments have been made to the existing treaties will we have something approaching a new treaty. As the two treaties to be amended have to be taken together to form a full picture of the proposed principles, institutions and procedures for running the EU, it might be helpful if these two treaties in their amended form had a unifying title. (Such as Treaty on the Governance of the European Union or even The European Constitution. Why not?).
When this final amended document (or two final amended documents) is/are available to read can leaders, MPs, MEPs and ordinary citizens at last have something on which they might make a judgement.
No parliament has the right to ratify a half-written, two thirds incomplete purely preparatory document.
See Sample pages of Treaty of Lisbon.
Another matter of great concern is the way EU leaders have made it as difficult as possible for journalists and ordinary citizens to know about and follow the development of the Treaty of Lisbon. They have effectively ensured ignorance and created apathy amongst the 480 million people of the European Union. See EU leaders sow confusion to minimise democratic involvement

Other failings of the Treaty of Lisbon are explored in The European Union and You. See Home page.

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Treaty of Lisbon / Reform Treaty. How it came to be written.

2001 December	EU leaders meeting in Laeken identified many problems areas in the running of the EU and set up a conference under French former Prime Minister Valerie Giscard d'Estaing to come up with some ideas that they could consider.
2002 February	Giscard d'Estaing's conference began drafting the Constitution. It ignored directions given in the Laeken Declaration.
2004 October	EU leaders signed The European Constitution. This was designed to replace two treaties: The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 (Treaty on European Union) and The Treaty Establishing the European Community as amended by the Treaty of Nice (2001).
2005, May and June	People of Netherlands and France rejected the Constitution in referendums. This meant that the Constitution could not come into operation. Treaty on European Union and Treaty Establishing a European Community continued to govern the running of the European Union.
2005, June	EU leaders announced a "period of reflection" while they considered what to do next.
2006	EU leaders announced that the "period of reflection" would come to an end by June 2008. European Parliament debated the issues and encouraged "citizens'" debates which took place in three or four member states only.
2007, January	1 January, Germany took over the EU presidency for a six month period under German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She is determined to get something settled to replace the Constitution. She and her colleagues consult EU leaders about their concerns with the Constitution.
2007, June	The German team come up with a plan to replace the Constitution. At a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, Angela Merkel presented the text of a set of instructions for re-writing the texts of The Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community. All references to the words "Constitution", "flag", "anthem", and "laws" are dropped. This document was discussed by EU leaders and agreed on 23 June. The document is called the "Draft IGC Mandate" (IGC means Inter-Governmental Conference). This was in fact instructions for writing The Reform Treaty. (The document formed part of the "Presidency Conclusions" EU reference 11177/07. It is printed in "The European Union and You.")
2007, October	An elaborated and refined version of this "Mandate" now called "The Reform Treaty" was agreed by EU leaders.
2007 December 13th	"The Reform Treaty" is renamed "The Treaty of Lisbon" and is signed by all 27 EU leaders in Lisbon.

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Treaty of Lisbon / Reform Treaty.
What happens next.

To come into effect the Treaty of Lisbon has to be agreed by parliaments in all 27 member states of the European Union. In Ireland the Irish Constitution requires that they hold a referendum to approve the new treaty.

In the UK the Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, claims there is no need for a referendum. The opposition Conservative and Liberal parties claim there is a need for a referendum because this was promised in the last Labour Party manifesto in relation to the Constitution. The Treaty of Lisbon, beyond dispute, replaces the Constitution. The IGC Mandate makes it clear that the new treaty uses the "innovations" of the Constitution. Although there are some changes it is also clear that almost all the substance of the Constitution is there. EU leaders claim that the substance of the Constitution has been kept in the New Treaty.

Failing a referendum the UK parliament will vote. It is unlikely to be a free vote.

Throughout the EU the Treaty of Lisbon will be approved without being, without being understood - a sad reflection on the way the EU operates and another blow to the credibility of the EU and politicians in the eyes of EU citizens.

The process of ratification should be completed in 2008 with the Treaty of Lisbon planned to come into effect in 1 January 2009.

This website is edited by David Roberts.

David Roberts is the author of The European Union and You. See Home page for details and a link. HOME PAGE

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Key facts about the Treaty of Lisbon/Reform Treaty signed by EU leaders on 13 December 2007 in Lisbon