The main aim of the article is to point out and assess the modifications introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon in respect both to the present legal situation and to the solutions proposed in the Constitution for Europe. The authoressess undertake a task to evaluate the real 'reforming value' of the Lisbon Treaty. To avoid associations with the Constitutional Treaty, it was decided to retain the structure of two treaties: Treaty on European Union and Treaty on functioning of the European Union instead of replacing them by one Treaty. The European Union will replace and succeed the European Community, thus becoming a coherent international organization equipped with legal personality. One of the consequences of this fundamental change will be the suppression of the three pillar structure of the EU, established in the Treaty of Maastricht. The paper examines modifications introduced by the Lisbon Treaty in the following fields: the protection of fundamental rights; the future Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, institutional changes; the role of national parliaments, as well as changes brought to the substantial EC law.
Preparations for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2011 are one of the priorities of Polish foreign policy. At the same time, the starting point for the choice of priorities of the Presidency will be the development of the European Union agenda. Moreover, the defined priorities should not only reflect the internal economic and social needs of the European Union, but should also take into account translating internal actions into responses to the challenges faced by Europe in the global arena. In this sense, the Polish Presidency faces particular challenges in the external policy field which involve the legal aspects following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, but also, and above all, the sensitive political decisions.
Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the issue of the exter¬nal representation of the European Union has been high on the agenda of all subse¬quent EU rotating Presidencies, including the Polish Presidency. The new legal framework created by the TEU and TFEU has an important impact on the practice of external representation, giving rise to continuous interpretative questions as regards the division of powers between the EU and the Member States. These issues may be linked to three main aspects of the EU’s presence in international relations: participation in the negotiations of international agreements; representation of the EU at international organisations; and bilateral relations between the EU and third countries. This paper focuses on the practical aspects and exercise of external repre¬sentation in matters of shared competences, presenting cases that took place during the second half of the year 2011 (and in the period directly preceding Polish Presi¬dency), in which the discrepancies in the approach of the Member States and the rotating Presidency on the one hand, and the European Commission and High Rep¬resentative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (supported by the European Exter¬nal Action Service) on the other were highly visible. Possible scenarios for future developments in the area of EU external representation are also presented.
The current financial crisis coincides with a period of deep political and substantive crises in the European Union. Although it is difficult to predict how it will affect the further development of the EU, it has certainly revealed the full range of the challenges which the EU is facing - both in terms of its political system and its policies. On one hand, the crisis has shown that some Member States are inclined to work in smaller groups, perhaps at the cost of the Union's cohesion. On the other hand, it has also demonstrated that the EU is attractive and that the Member States perceive it as an effective mechanism to guarantee their financial, economic and political security. At the same time, the financial crisis has definitely increased public awareness in the Member States of the need to increase the effectiveness of the EU and thus to complete the political reform, discussed for years, by putting the Treaty of Lisbon into effect. Thus, the greatest remaining challenge is to maintain the coherence of the process of European integration. While the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon gives the EU new momentum in this respect, it does not guarantee success - strengthening the effectiveness of the EU. Much will depend on the measures used to implement the reforms prescribed by the Treaty, which are aimed at providing regulation of the relations between the EU and its Member States in managing common issues. In the end, the decisive factor will be the political will of the Member States to use the new opportunities offered by the Treaty of Lisbon to increase the effectiveness and cohesion of the EU.
The institutional status of the Court of Justice confirms that the founding fathers of the treaties envisioned the Court taking on a role that is going beyond the paradigm of simply applying and enforcing European law. An analysis of jurisprudence shows that the Court has indeed become an autonomous actor in the integration process. For the Court 'the law' plays the role of both an argumentative force and a tool for market participants to pursue their goals independently of, and sometimes in direct opposition to, political process. The Union court assumes the mantle of the law maker who creatively influences the system of European law and determines the behavior of the institutions and states. Having said this, it would be wrong to assume that the legislative function of the Court is analogous to that of political law maker. Within the confines of the cooperative model of the European law maker, the Court acts as a judicial law maker who speaks the language of general principles and precedents, pursues long-term objectives of the Treaty as opposed to the short-term exigencies of day-to-day politics. Both law makers are complementary to each other. They act as critical interlocutors and expect mutual appreciation for their respective contribution to the working-out of European law. To this end the cooperative model of the European law maker is characterized by a permanent dialogue and taking into account of what each law maker has to say. Treaty of Lisbon provides perfect example of the functioning of this model, since imperfect legal text (effect of action on the part of a political law maker) is subjected to critical rationalization by a court. The latter aims at making the text operational and effective. This takes on a fundamental importance, because it widens the scope of the normative analysis. By constraining our analysis of the Lisbon Treaty exclusively to legal text, we would be in many cases forced to leave empty-handed: always searching for answers, and yet never getting them. Only global reconstruction of the legal text which takes into consideration also the input from the judicial law maker gives us a chance to arrive at the complete picture of European law in force.
Addressing the issue of a dispute over the supremacy of EU law under the Treaty of Lisbon, it should be noticed that the principle of precedence of EU law is among its most controversial principles and has been a subject of dispute since its early days. The position of European Court of Justice in this respect may be described as follows: 1) EU law has precedence over the provisions of domestic law which are inconsistent with it, 2) ETJ has exclusive competence to decide on the validity of legal acts of the European Union, 3) member states cannot invoke their domestic legislation, including that of constitutional rank, to justify non-compliance with EU law. Moreover, the jurisprudence of constitutional courts shows that the principle of precedence EU law has not been unconditionally accepted. Contrary to ECJ case law, they contest the possibility of application of EU law in the event that it does not comply with domestic norms of constitutional rank, in particular the fundamental rights guaranteed in the constitution. The Treaty of Lisbon does not resolve the dispute over the principle of precedence of EU law. Even if not explicitly declared in the Treaty, it is reflected in the Declaration No 17 annexed thereto. As a consequence of such approach to the principle of precedence by the Treaty of Lisbon, the principle will probably remain the subject of different interpretation by the ECJ and the constitutional courts of EU member states. First judgments of constitutional courts (particularly the German Federal Constitutional Court) in this respect seem to confirm such statement. However, due to a flexible approach applied to this matter, the principle of precedence of EU law, despite all the controversies surrounding it, is accepted in the member states which would not possible accept its explicit declaration in the text of the Treaty. The dispute over precedence of UE law remains unsolved after the Treaty of Lisbon, as it was before it entered into force. It seems that, in this situation, the best advice is to avoid such conflicts. As concerns the relation between constitutional law and primary law this goal could be achieved by an a priori (preventive) review of the conformity of the treaty with the constitution. On the other hand, for the purposes of elimination of non-conformity of secondary legislation and the constitution the appropriate mechanisms provided for in the treaties should be used first. However, own national interests of the member state should be addressed and protected in the phase of adoption of legal acts of the Union.
The Treaty of Lisbon is a legal act shaping the form of the European constitutional system. The Treaty introduces substantial changes in the system of government of the European Union, the structural system of public authority existing within the territory of the member states, including Poland. It also provides for new regulation of the relations between the European Union and its member states, and exerts different influence on the system of government of the member states. An increased effectiveness of the functioning of the EU involves the need for improvement the operation of the Polish state apparatus, so that it should enable Poland to effectively participate in the Union decision-making processes on the one hand, and to improve and accelerate the implementation of EU law by Polish public authorities on the other. The ratification of the Treaty makes us aware of the insufficiency of current constitutional solutions in the sphere of relations between Poland and EU and provides fresh impetus for a comprehensive normative regulation of the procedures for the adoption of a position by a state in new decision-making mechanisms and the procedures for the exercise of competences conferred by the above-mentioned act on the Polish public authorities.
The Lisbon Treaty introduced important changes that deeply affect the EU’s institutional balance with regard to the nature and political relevance of the Council Presidency. Formal competences of the Presidency, especially with regard to the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council, have been greatly reduced. In addition to the treaty changes, the impact of the Presidency can be further constrained by the political realities and challenges facing the Union. However, there is still room for the rotating Presidency to exert informal influence based on various resources at the disposal of the Member State exercising the function. The growing fragmentation, and the emergence of the hybrid ‘presidency network’ are analysed in this article pri¬marily on the basis of the Polish experience in 2011.
The introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon has brought important changes to the architecture of the European Union and its institutions. The institutional balance of the new structure, which abolished the pillars of the EU, and the external representation of the Union have undergone especially deep changes, focused mainly on the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Through literal, systemic and functional interpretation this article provides an analysis of the evolution and content of the provisions concerning the High Representative in order to ascertain the value and effect of the changes introduced. The research indicates that the new legal solutions encompassed by the function of the High Representative, although incomplete, offer many interesting possibilities for consolidating the Union's institutional structure. Regrettably however, they leave too much to negotiations and political manoeuvring and too little to concrete legal solutions, leaving the Union with an incomplete and unclear external relations institutional structure.
Three years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on the 1st Decem¬ber 2009, Europe is slowly emerging from an unprecedented crisis in its history. Reforms in response to the financial and then economic crisis affecting the European Union (EU) and the euro area since 2008 have transformed the European institu¬tional landscape considerably. By tracing the trends towards more differentiated forms of European integration back to a number of innovative instruments introduced over the past years, this paper outlines some of the major determinants of today’s evolving role of the rotating Presidency, which we define as the ‘stability role’.
At the mid-term of the European Parliament’s 2009–2014 legislative session, two relatively recent developments have re-opened the discussion on the prospects for an increased role of Europarties in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. The first concerns a proposal that Europarties nominate their own candidates for the President of the European Commission, whereas the second suggests creating a transnational EU constituency, from which a small percentage of Members of the European Parliament will be elected. This paper critically reviews these developments, both by surveying the past record of Europarties and the challenges that they will face in the event these innovations would be implemented. It is argued that while limited competition between the candidates for President of the European Commission is to be welcomed, the creation of a pan-European constituency would elevate the expectations of the role of Europarties to a level which many of them will simply not be capable of dealing with.
(Title in Polish - 'Demokracja partycypacyjna w Unii Europejskiej - rozwazania na tle wprowadzenia instytucji obywatelskiej inicjatywy ustawodawczej'). The article deals with elimination of the so-called democratic deficit in the practice of functioning of the European Union, particularly the question whether a popular legislative initiative, a newly introduced legislative mechanism, may give the EU citizens a real opportunity to participate in policy shaping and decision-making processes. Firstly, the author presents basic principles and values of the operation of the European Union, including the EU decision-making process and its legal basis, as well as the influence of European law on legislation of EU member states. Then, he makes a reference to legitimacy of the authorities, both on the national and on EU level, at the same time pointing to the lack of the classic concept of the nation (as a sovereign and an origin of all powers) within the EU. In the author's view, searching an appropriate legitimating of the operation of the Union's bodies seems not only to be intended to reinforce the role of national parliaments but also refers to popular legislative initiative as a classic mechanism of direct democracy. Moreover, the author gives an assessment of the work treaty solutions and legislative proposals concerning popular legislative initiative. He examines the proposals currently introduced on which basis he makes his judgments and comments de lege ferenda as to the practical application of this instrument.
This paper gives an overview of the consequences of the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in the Polish legal order. The text begins with a summary of the present legal framework concerning Polish membership in the EU. It proceeds to examine the provisions of the new Treaty which regulate the increased role of national Parliaments and reform of the system for protecting fundamental rights in the EU. Then the effects of these reforms are analysed in the context of the Polish legal system and the following issues are examined: the enhanced role of the Polish Parliament (the Sejm and the Senate); the obligations of the Government; the inter-institutional co-operation between the central governing branches; and the interpretation and application of the so-called Polish-British Protocol in light of the change in status of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Finally, the question whether changes are needed in the Polish Constitution is discussed.
The negative outcome of the referendum ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon in Ireland has raised numerous questions about the coming into force of the new fundamental treaty of the European Union. Reactions to the outcome of the Irish referendum have raised even more questions about the future of the European Union, contradictory EU statements, equality of EU member states, as well as responsibility of national political leaders to explain the significance of the EU to their electorate. In order not to increase the gap between the EU and its citizens and not to threaten inevitable future reforms in the structure and competences of the EU, national and European politicians should admit and learn from their mistakes and achievements. One possible solution could be to hold referenda on single-issue treaties on the same day in all EU member states.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon is a good occasion to examine the development trends in the European Union. The document takes a more pragmatic approach and is a rather technical improvement of the primary law of the EU. Under the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon, EU is actually an international organization with a more effective type of leadership. The decision-making system is improved and simplified. This may help Europe to become a powerful actor in international relations and to more effectively solve the problems of development of the European continent. A crucial solution concerns providing a binding legal character to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which makes the rights more visible as guiding values for all the UE policies. This opens the door for accession of EU to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Treaty of Lisbon is only a reform treaty, and several important changes, provided by the Constitutional Treaty, have survived. They include the provisions of the federal character (e.g. those concerning an 'early warning system' in which national parliaments will scrutinize draft European legislative acts as to their compliance with the principle of subsidiarity). However, the Treaty does not create a federal state and does not even suggest that this idea would be realized. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, which has lead to a crisis within the EU, may show that the radical changes, proposed by the European elites, are not accepted or not understood by the European public opinion. The problem of 'democratic deficit' within EU (reflected by the fact that the societies of the EU do not exert appropriate influence on the development and functioning of the Union) is still not solved, although the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon provide for the strengthening of the European Parliament and the national parliaments move in a positive direction. The cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments may be an important factor of creating the EU political legitimacy. The dialogue between the supporters of the idea of 'Europe of Homelands' and of 'Federal Europe' is continued. The concept of 'Europe of Homelands' still has a big support, especially among the new member states of Central and Eastern Europe. In such a situation the federalization of EU cannot be carried out rapidly against the will of those communities.
Pursuant to Articles 2 and 3 of the Protocol No. 1 on the role of national parliaments in the European Union, national parliaments have the right to send reasoned opinions on the compliance of draft European legislative acts with the principle of subsidiarity. The article is aimed at showing a real extent of this new power of national parliaments. In this context, of key importance is defining the notion of 'legislative act', taking particularly into consideration the doubts it raises in relation to acts adopted under special law-making procedure that has not been explicitly specified in the EU establishing treaties. First, the authoress presents the power of parliaments to scrutinize the compliance with the principle of subsidiarity. Then, she describes the system of EU legal acts after the reform introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. The article also deals with the definition of acts adopted under a special law-making procedure. It also makes a distinction between acts that are declared by the Treaty on the functioning of the EU as subject to be adopted according to special law-making procedure and acts about which there is no such information in the Treaty. An analysis contains all situations where a legal act is adopted by the Council with the consent of, or after the consultation with, the European Parliament, but the provision of the act does not explicitly indicate that that special law making procedure is applied. This fact is of key importance, because the assumption that the lack of such reference results in classification of these acts as not adopted under a special, and the more so - normal - procedure, eliminates them from the category of legislative acts and, therefore, makes it impossible to scrutinize the compliance of the principles of subsidiarity by them. This means that these acts - sometimes of considerable political and economic importance - are excluded from the review of the national parliaments. The analyses provided by the authoress enable us to say that despite of some doubts, legal acts that are not declared as subject to adoption under special or normal law making procedure, are not legislative acts. Hence, national parliaments are not entitled to scrutinize their compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.
(Title in Polish - 'Nowe reguly dotyczace podzialu kompetencji miedzy Unia Europejska a panstwami czlonkowskimi w swietle Traktatu z Lizbony'). The article deals with the distribution of powers between the European Union and its member states. As a point of departure the author identifies two issues. First of them is the principle of conferred powers, from which it follows that competences not conferred upon the Union remain with the member states. The Treaty of Lisbon introduces practically no change in this respect, therefore, this subject des not require a more detailed examination. Another issue is the distinction between exclusive and non-exclusive competences of EU. This area has been changed substantially by the Treaty of Lisbon. First, the Treaty provides a definition of exclusive competence. Second, it distinguishes various kinds of non-exclusive competences of EU. They are to include shared competences as well as coordinating, complementary and supporting competences. The competences in the field of foreign and security policy and in the field of coordination of economic policy have been regulated separately. The author believes that the most important task is to specify the definition and the scope of operation of exclusive competences of EU. Other issues practically have no considerable consequences. He notices that the list of exclusive competences is shorter than that proposed by the Commission in 1992. He recognizes good intentions of the authors of the Treaty of Lisbon to adopt basic premises of constitutional law in relation to exclusive competences. Nevertheless, he criticizes the solutions adopted, particularly in the sphere of trade policy. The author argues that in the course of drafting the text of the Treaty, its actual authors have not applied a uniform concept of exclusiveness. He also points to the high level of reliance of the adopted provisions on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. This relates mostly to the decision to classify the competence in the area of conservation of marine biological resources as an exclusive competence. Doubts may also arise about the inclusion of the entire monetary policy, instead of the issuance of the euro, in the list of exclusive competences. On the other hand, there will probably be no problem with classifying the establishing of the competition rules within this category. .
The aim of the article is to present the key theses of the Federal Constitutional Court ruling of 30 June, 2009, concerning the appropriate implementation of the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon in the legal environment of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ruling was widely discussed due to the importance of the issue as well as a judgment itself, not solely from the point of view of the German doctrine. The ruling under discussion presents an idea that the process of European integration is 'limited' as the evolution of the European Union finds some limitations within both the Treaty of Lisbon and the Fundamental Statute of the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Constitution determined some impassable borders of integration by an obligation to protect a 'constitutional identity' (elements constituting the German state such as the notion of the state of law, protection of fundamental rights, democracy and a federal structure of the state). This way a canon of appropriate integration with respect for the fundamental 'constitutional identity' of the German Republic, i.e. respecting the provisions of the state legislature, its role in the process of integration, and organization of the process of co-operation between the legislative and executive powers on the European ground. At the same time, the Federal Tribunal sustained its former ruling policy and was for the primacy of the Fundamental Statute over any other legal acts, including those issued by the organs of the European Union. It also seems that some of the theses of the ruling remain valid per analogiam to the legislations of other Member States.
This study aims to map the development of the European Union (EU)/European Community (EC) diplomatic service in the two decades leading up to the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, which established the European External Action Service as the current form of the EU diplomatic service. It describes the most important milestones in the development of the EU/EC diplomatic service from 1987 to 2009, especially the 1989 unification of the formal status of all European Commission delegations, the 1993 institutional unification of delegations management through the establishment of a special Directorate-General for the Administration of Delegations within the European Commission organisation structure, the 1993 strengthening of the role of the European Commission delegations in traditional diplomatic tasks of the political arena, which resulted mainly from their closer cooperation with national diplomatic representations of the EU member states, introduced by the Treaty on EU and, finally, the establishment of an EU High Representative for the CFSP – the unofficial ‘EU Minister of Foreign Affairs’ – in 1999.
The problem of so-called democracy deficit in the European Union (EU) is one of the most important challenges the EU faces at the begining of the 21st century. Strengthening democratic legitimacy of the EU and making the EU’s institutions closer to its citizens were one of the most prominent puropses in the Treaty establishing the Constitution for Europe and in the Treaty of Lisbon. The article deals with certain new provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon which are, in the author’s opinion, closely connected with the problem of democracy deficit in the EU. The author points out such amendments of the Treaty of Lisbon as, among others, implementing the post of the president of the European Council and the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, the new definition of the qualified majority voting in the Council, strengthening political power of the European Parliament, new provisions on democratic rules in the EU, bigger role of the national parliaments in the process of the European integration and analyzes the influence of these amendments on the problem of democracy deficit in the EU. The author tries to answer if these new regulations reduce or not the democracy deficit in the EU.
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