The remit of the EEC thus developed, and foreign policy became an area for consultation and group action. Other funds and bodies were created including the European Monetary System in 1979 and methods of giving grants to underdeveloped areas. In 1987 the Single European Act (SEA) evolved the EEC’s role a step further. Now European Parliament members were given the ability to vote on legislation and issues, with the number of votes dependant on each member’s population. Bottlenecks in the common market were also targeted.
The Maastricht Treaty and the European Union
On February 7th 1992 European integration moved a step further when the Treaty on European Union, (better known as the Maastricht Treaty) was signed. This came into force on 1 November 1993 and changed the EEC into the newly named European Union. The change was to broaden the work of the supranational bodies, based around three “pillars”: the European Communities, giving more power to the European parliament; a common security/foreign policy; involvement in the domestic affairs of member nations on “justice and home affairs”. In practice, and to pass the mandatory unanimous vote, these were all compromises away from the unified ideal. The EU also set out guidelines for the creation of a single currency, although when this was introduced in 1999 three nations opted out and one failed to meet the required targets.Currency and economic reform were now being driven largely by the fact that the US and Japanese economies were growing faster than Europe’s, especially after expanding quickly into the new developments in electronics. There were objections from poorer member nations, who wanted more money from the union, and from larger nations, who wanted to pay less; a compromise was eventually reached. One planned side effect of the closer economic union and the creation of a single market was the greater co-operation in social policy which would have to occur as a result.
The Maastricht Treaty also formalised the concept of EU citizenship, allowing any individual from an EU nation to run for office in their government, which was also changed to promote decision making. Perhaps most controversially, the EU’s entrance into domestic and legal matters – which produced the Human Rights Act and over-rode many member states’ local laws – produced rules relating to free movement within the EU’s borders, leading to paranoia about mass migrations from poorer EU nations to richer ones. More areas of members’ government were affected than ever before, and the bureaucracy expanded. Although the Maastricht Treaty came into effect, it faced heavy opposition, and was only narrowly passed in France and forced a vote in the UK.
Further Enlargements
In 1995 Sweden, Austria and Finland joined, while in 1999 the Treaty of Amsterdam came into effect, bringing employment, working and living conditions and other social and legal issues into the EU remit. However, by then Europe was facing great changes caused by the collapse of the Soviet dominated east and the emergence of economically weakened, but newly democratic, eastern nations. The 2001 Treaty of Nice tried to prepare for this, and a number of states entered into special agreements where they initially joined parts of the EU system, such as the free trade zones. There were discussions over streamlining voting and modifying the CAP, especially as Eastern Europe had a much higher percentage of the population involved in agriculture than the west, but in the end financial worries prevented change,While there was opposition, ten nations joined in 2004 (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) and two in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania). By this time there had been agreements to apply majority voting to more issues, but national vetoes remained on tax, security and other issues. Worries over international crime – where criminals had formed effective cross border organisations – were now acting as an impetus.
The Lisbon Treaty
The EU’s level of integration is already unmatched in the modern world, but there are people who want to move it closer still (and many people who don’t). The Convention on the Future of Europe was created in 2002 to create an EU constitution, and the draft, signed in 2004, aimed to install a permanent EU president, a Foreign Minister and a Charter of Rights. It would have also allowed the EU to make many more decisions instead of the heads’ of the individual nation states. It was rejected in 2005, when France and the Netherlands failed to ratify it (and before other EU members got the chance to vote).An amended work, the Lisbon Treaty, still aimed to install an EU president and Foreign Minister, as well as expand the EU’s legal powers, but only through developing the existing bodies. This was signed in 2007 but was initially rejected, this time by voters in Ireland. However, in 2009 Irish voters passed the treaty, many concerned of the economic effects of saying no. By the winter 2009 all 27 EU states had ratified the process, and it took effect. Herman Van Rompuy, at that time Belgium Prime Minister, became the first ‘President of the European Council’, and Britain’s Baroness Ashton ‘High Representative for Foreign Affairs’.
There remained many political opposition parties – and politicians in the ruling parties – which opposed the treaty, and the EU remains a divisive issue in the politics of all member nations.
