A. Ott

The European Parliament’s role in EU treaty-making

The European Parliaments role in EU external relations and treaty-making has increased over the years through constitutional practice and Treaty amendments. Finally, with the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Parliaments constitutional rights in treaty-making establish – in the words of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) – ‘symmetry between legislation-making and treaty-making in compliance with institutional balance provided for by the Treaties’. In a comparative overview, the European Parliament has ascertained more extensive powers over treaty-making compared to the majority of national parliaments which are only involved in politically important international treaties. This contribution addresses the consequences of this symmetry or parallelism and asks whether it leads to structural symmetry or even procedural symmetry which synchronizes the acts of legislating and treaty-making with each other. This contribution analyses the role of the European Parliament in the different phases of international treaty-making against the backdrop of this constitutional practice. This constitutional practice is shaped by intergovernmental agreements, bilateral arrangements and European Parliament resolutions and is influenced by the mounting case law of the CJEU. It also assesses the European Parliaments role in concluding international administrative agreements concluded by the Commission and Europol and how far the constitutional practice is in line with EU primary law.

Depillarisation: The Entrance of Intergovernmentalism through the Backdoor?

The treaty of lisbon will finally put an end to the division between the european communities and the european union. This seems to result consequently in one pillar system based on one legal personality of the european union.1 however, a closer look reveals not only that two treaties continue to exist – the treaty on the european union (teu) and the treaty on the functioning of the european union (tfeu)2 – but also that differences between the former supranational pillar based on the ec treaty and intergovernmental pillars established by the eu treaty persist.3 currently, the supranational pillar of the european community is based on the special legal nature of ec primary and secondary law, which takes precedence over national law and can have direct effect; the existence of full legal review by the ecJ and decision-making is mainly based on qualified-majority voting. in contrast, the second intergovernmental cfSp pillar is characterised by special legal instruments that are a part of international law, with no legal review by the ecJ and unanimity in decision-making. With the merging of the pillars (but not the treaties) these decisive differences between the former first and second pillar will not disappear. in addition, while a new area of freedom, security and justice is created that merges the former third pillar under police and Judicial cooperation in criminal Matters together with title iV of the ec treaty, certain traces of intergovernmentalism reappear in the treaty of lisbon and its protocols.

Maastricht Conference Celebrating 50 Years of European Integration: Foundations and Perspectives of the European Union

On 23–24 March 2007, Maastricht University organised an international conference on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the European Economic Community and the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the European Union by the Maastricht Treaty. Th e conference took place in Maastricht with 128 participants and was co-fi nanced by the Jean Monnet project of the European Commission. Th is conference took the opportunity to refl ect on the foundations of these entities, the present state of a Union of 27 Member States and its future development in light of the pending Draft Constitutional Treaty and new accession candidates.1 Th e conference’s refl ections were organised around the following streams:

Is Second Best Still Good Enough? The European Neighbourhood Policy as an Alternative to EU Accession

In October 2006, the long-awaited European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) was adopted. Th is ENPI will set the legal frame for fi nancial support for all EU neighbours without a concrete accession perspective (benefi ciaries include Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Russian Federation, Syria, Tunisia and the Ukraine) from 1 January 2007 until 31 December 2013. It replaces the existing fi nancial regulations for the Euro-med countries under MEDA1 and the Eastern European countries under TACIS,2 and forms an important central piece of a wide array of measures initiated by the European Union since the introduction of the new European Neighbourhood Policy in 2004.3 Th e ENP was, until this point, clustered around political instruments in the form of strategy papers, action plans and individual country reports, which borrowed heavily from the administrative experiences gained during the ten-year-long pre-accession process.4 Th is new policy follows the successful management of the pre-accession strategy with dynamic, updated but political instruments in the form of progress reports and action plans5 which will be implemented through the association councils and its decision-making and are based on a static, bilateral legal basis of association agreements.6 Th e fi nancial instrument