The Lisbon Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Lisbon, updated regulations for the European Union, establishing a more centralized leadership and foreign policy, a proper process for countries that wish to leave the Union, and a streamlined process for enacting new policies.

The treaty was signed on December 13, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal, and amended the two previous treaties that established the foundation for the European Union.

What the Lisbon Treaty Changed

The Lisbon Treaty was built on existing treaties but adopted new rules to enhance cohesion and streamline action within the European Union. Important articles of the Lisbon Treaty include:

The Lisbon Treaty also replaced the previously rejected Constitutional Treaty, which attempted to establish a Union constitution. Member countries couldn't agree on the voting procedures established in the constitution, since some countries, such as Spain and Poland, would lose voting power.

The Lisbon Treaty resolved this issue by proposing weighted votes and extending the reach of qualified majority voting.

The term Maastricht Treaty refers to the international agreement that was responsible for the creation of the European Union (EU). The agreement was signed in 1992 in the Dutch city of Maastricht and became effective in 1993. It led to greater cooperation between the 12 member nations that signed the treaty by promoting unified citizenship, along with economic, social, and progress. The treaty also laid down the foundation for a single currency, the euro. It was amended several times since it was signed. As of October 2021, 27 member states were part of the European Union.

Understanding the Maastricht Treaty

The Maastricht Treaty was signed in the Dutch city of Maastricht on Feb. 7, 1992, by representatives of 12 member nations that made up the European Community (EC). Discussions for the agreement began in December 1991.1 The concept of the EU was a topic of debate and required the approval of voters in each country, which included:

Formally as the Treaty on European Union, the treaty went into effect on Nov. 1, 1993.

The goal of the treaty was to increase cooperation by establishing common European citizenship to allow residents to move, live, and work freely between member states. It also created a shared economic, foreign policy, and security policy system. Member nations also agreed to cooperate on security and legal affairs.1

The treaty established a timeline for the creation and implementation of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The EMU was to include a common economic and monetary union, a central banking system, and a common currency. The European Central Bank (ECB) was in 1998 once the end of the year conversion rates between member states' currencies was fixed, a prelude to the creation of the euro, which began circulation in 2002.

It also introduced the criteria that countries must meet if they want to join the euro. This was a measure to ensure that countries joining the euro were stable in inflation, levels of public debt, interest rates, and exchange rates.

The process of enlargement of the European Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), Malta and Cyprus, which began at the end of the 1990s, required more substantial institutional reforms than those introduced in 1997 by the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), which met throughout 2000, endeavoured to find solutions to the problems which had been the subject of lengthy debate at the Nice European Council of 7, 8 and 9 December 2000. This summit saw the official proclamation, on the fringes of the European Council, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, drawn up by a Convention between December 1999 and September 2000 and listing all the rights of European citizens. However, the discussions proved to be particularly difficult in relation to the delicate issue of the representation of states, either Member States or states about to accede, within the Community institutions. Furthermore, it proved impossible clearly to define the future of the European Union, which might well lose some of its effectiveness. Consequently, the Treaty of Nice was vociferously criticised by certain Member States who did not wish to see their influence diminished.

In June 1995 — one and a half years after the 1992 Treaty on European Union came into force — a Reflection Group was set up to prepare the ground for a new Intergovernmental Conference. The Group submitted its report to the Madrid European Council in December 1995. The Conference, responsible for resolving certain institutional issues and differentiating between Member States in the integration process, opened in Turin in March 1996 and concluded at the meeting of the European Council in Amsterdam on 16 and 17 June 1997. Since the Amsterdam Council had secured a consensus on the draft document, the Treaty was signed in Amsterdam on 2 October 1997. Following the process of ratification by the Member States, the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force on 1 May 1999.

The Treaty of Amsterdam consists of 15 articles, 13 protocols — some annexed to the Treaty on European Union, some to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, some to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and some to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) — and 59 declarations.

Rather than thinking about the Single European Act as being like a treaty in the same right as the EEC treaty or the Treaty of Maastricht, it is key to remember that the SEA proposed and timetabled amendments to the EEC with the view to preparing the EEC member countries for further integration into the European Union as we now know it.


The SEA . . . Key facts

The SEA was a fundamental stage in the EU’s development for several reasons. The SEA effectively sought to prepare Europe for a new round of integration to be completed by the early 1990s and, in doing so, revived European integration after a period of ‘Euro-sclerosis’ or ‘Euro-stagnation’ throughout the 1970’s and 80’s.

The idea of the SEA was to highlight and develop the means for Europe to complete its internal market. The SEA was designed so as to turn the EEC from a common market to a single market.

It achieved this largely by creating the necessary decision making structures (such as increasing qualified majority voting and reducing voting under unanimity) that allowed progress towards complete market unification to be made and ensured that continuing management of the single market could be carried out once unification had been completed.

In a nutshell, the SEA paved the way and created the conditions for the creation of the European Union in 1993.