EU – Baltic States, Law and Regulations, Legislation

As a rule, all treaties in their preambles contain main political focal points on which the treaty in question is built upon. The preambles serve as the main guiding poles which underlined the main ideas on  which the contracting parties agreed on. The present Lisbon Treaty in no different in that sense. However, as soon as there are two treaties that the Lisbon Treaty has amended, we have two quite specific preambles that correspond to two different stages in integration which each of the treaties correspond to. 

Treaty’s preambles: reflecting main EU policy guidelines

What is commonly known as “the Lisbon Treaty” is in fact a set of two treaties. As is postulated in the text of both treaties: “the Union shall be founded on the present Treaty (i.e. TEU) and on the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Those two Treaties shall have the same legal value. The Union shall replace and succeed the European Community” (art.1, TEU).

In another treaty, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union it is said, that “this Treaty and the Treaty on European Union constitute the Treaties on which the Union is founded. These two Treaties, which have the same legal value, shall be referred to as “the Treaties” (art.1, TFEU).

Thus, to avoid mistakes, when mentioning the Lisbon Treaty, researchers shall all the time refer to one of those two; in this text we use references to the Consolidated version published in the Official Journal of the European Union, 9.5.2008/C 115.

Usually, the preambles of any treaty reflect the main political ideas behind the sides’ cooperative efforts. As soon as the Lisbon treaty consists of two treaties, each of them is having its own preamble. These two provides the basic guidelines for understanding the general principles of the EU “construction” and fundamental polices.

1. Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU (the EEC original version of 1957) contains the following principles of European integration in the preamble:

a)                  laying the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe;

b)                  ensuring the economic and social progress in the member states by common action to eliminate the barriers dividing Europe;

c)                  afferming the aim of the constant improvements of peoples’ living and working conditions as the essential objective of the EU common efforts;  

d)                 recognising that the removal of existing obstacles in integration needs concerted action in order to guarantee steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition;

e)                  strengthening the unity of the member states economies and ensuering their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions;

f)                   contributing, by means of a common commercial policy, to the progressive abolition of restrictions in international trade;

g)                  confirming the solidarity which binds Europe and the overseas countries and desiring to ensure the development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations;

h)                  pooling the member states’ resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and calling upon other peoples in Europe who share their ideal to join in their efforts;

i)                    promoting the development of the highest possible level of knowledge for peoples in Europe through a wide access to education and through its continuous updating.

2. Treaty on European Union (in 2008 version); its preamble contains rather different guidelines for European policy principles while acknowledging that further steps are to be taken in order to advance European integration:

a)                      the preamble starts with postulating that the EU is marking “a new stage in the process of European integration undertaken with the establishment of the European Communities”; than following that

b)                      the process of European integration draws inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law;  

c)                      the integration is based on recalling the historic importance of the ending of the division of the European continent and the need to create firm bases for the construction of the European future;

d)                     the member states confirmed their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law,

e)                      they confirmed their attachment to fundamental social rights as defined in the European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961 and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers,

f)                       the member states acknowledged their desire to deepen the solidarity between their peoples while respecting their history, their culture and their traditions;

g)                      they intend to enhance further the democratic and efficient functioning of the European Union institutions so as to enable them better to carry out, within a single institutional framework, the tasks entrusted to them (italics mine, EE);

h)                      the member states resolved to strengthen and convergence their economies in order to establish an economic and monetary union including a single and stable currency;

i)                        they underlined their intention and determination: to promote economic and social progress for their peoples, taking into account the principle of sustainable development (within the context of the accomplishment of the internal market), to reinforce cohesion and environmental protection, to implement such policies that would ensure the advances in economic integration in line with the accompanied parallel progress in other economic and social fields;

j)                        agreed that the European citizenship common to nationals of their countries would be established;

k)                      the member states were resolved to implement a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy (which might lead to a common defence and security policy), thereby reinforcing the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world;

l)                        the member states wished to facilitate the free movement of persons while ensuring the safety and security of their peoples, by establishing an area of freedom, security and justice;

m)                    they were resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity (this principle if a follow-up of the corresponding principle in the founding EEC Treaty, see point a) above).

Lisbon Treaty “combined”

Therefore, the division between the two treaties in the “combined Lisbon Treaties” is the following:

• first, the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union, TFEU (which in fact is the numerously amended EEC Treaty of 1957), which, as the treaty promotes: “organases the functioning of the Union and determines the areas of, delimitation of, and arrangements for exercising its competences” (art. 1, TFEU);
• second, the Treaty on European Union, TEU which originated in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 with numerous subsequent amendments, including those that stem from the abandoned “Constitution for Europe”, which was prepared in 2002-03 and finally signed by the EU-25 member states in 2004. The TEU provides for the general political and economic background for the European Union (instead of Communities) and combines the basic spheres of European integration into one, i.e. those of internal market, Union’s external actions, foreign, defence and security policies.    

The first one, the TFEU is more complicated and voluminous: it contains 358 articles, as it describes the integration issues in all spheres of economic, social and other spheres of common development.

The second one, TEU is les voluminous (just 55 articles) though not less important, as it contains –for the first time in Union’s history- both the division of competences between the EU institutions and the EU-27 member states, and the common and specific provisions for the EU external actions, common foreign, security and defence policy. It is the TEU, which for the first time mentioned the possibility for the member states to withdraw from the Union (the procedure is described in detail in art. 50, TEU).

Finally, it would be interesting to see what “went wrong” with the so-long disputed preamble in the “Constitution for Europe”, and what have been still transforming into the TEU preamble. Out of six items, both in the draft Constitution and in the Treaty endorsed by the EU-15 and 10 candidate states in 2004, almost none was incorporated into the present treaty, except for item a), i.e. that of “inspiration from European inheritance”. Remarkable, that even so praised preamble’s item on “united in diversity” principle did not survive the test of time and member states’ intentions.