The book contains a collection of high-quality academic and expert contributions dealing with the central question of whether the Lisbon Treaty needs further revision. Due to the difficulties European Union actors have encountered in implementing the Lisbon Treaty’s reform and the inadequacies of the current legal framework brought to light by post-Lisbon practice, the volume focuses on possible innovations and functional approaches to improve the Union’s response to the challenges confronting it. In doing so, the volume first takes a horizontal approach to the Treaty’ revision and considers some constitutional features showing the interaction between the EU and its Member States (namely, the parameters of constitutional developments, the allocation of competences, the principles of solidarity and loyal cooperation). Then, the focus shifts to the question of fundamental rights within the EU’s constitutional framework, one of the most relevant innovations of the Lisbon Treaty being the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Union’s primary law. The last part of the volume is devoted to another domain significantly reshaped by the Lisbon reform, namely, the Union’s external dimension. ECJ Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi’s conclusions highlight the common themes emerging from the various contributions, stressing the need for a more general supranational approach to the political crisis the Union is going through. The content of this book will be of great value to academics, students, judges, practitioners and all others interested in the legal discourse on the progressive development of the European Union legal order.

Analysis of some of the most controversial aspects of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty.

Many of the most controversial areas of reform initiated by the Lisbon Treaty were not negotiated in the Treaty itself, but left to be resolved during its implementation. Since the Treaty's entry into force, the implementation process has already had a profound impact on many areas of EU law and policy, and consolidated new areas of power, such as over foreign investment. This collection gathers leading specialists in the field to analyse the Treaty's implementation and the directions of legal reform post-Lisbon. Drawing on a range of expertise to assess and comment on the Treaty, the contributors include both academics and practitioners involved in negotiating and implementing the Treaty. Focusing on the central issues and changes resulting from the Lisbon Treaty, the contributors examine the Treaty in the broader background of how the EU, and EU law in particular, has been developing in recent years and provide a contextual understanding of the future direction of EU law in the post-Lisbon era.

Since the beginning of the process of European integration the EU Common Commercial Policy (CCP) has been one of the most dynamic political fields. The EU has achieved a leading role among the economic superpowers and is regarded as a single economic area in which the EU speaks also on behalf of its Member States for most aspects of external economic politics. This volume analyzes the implications of the Treaty of Lisbon for the Common Commercial Policy of the EU. The Lisbon Treaty has declared all matters concerning external commercial policy as exclusive competences of the EU. Which consequences does this have for the Member States of the EU? With regard to institutional modifications, the Lisbon Treaty has significantly strengthened the role of the European Parliament and has substantially changed the role of the ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’ (HR). Further topics of this volume are the new normative framework of the CCP, inter alia the linkage of the CCP to the general objectives for the EU’s external actions and its dependence on secondary legislation, as well as investment policy now being part of the CCP.

The book contains 24 contributions from European law scholars and practitioners analysing the constitutional basis of the European Union and the normative orientation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as well as the central economic and monetary provisions (TFEU) after the Reform Treaty of Lisbon. Presenting the findings of a European research team, which is composed of authors from eight Member States, the publication underlines the aspiration of the editors to thoroughly analyse the constitutional law of the European Union currently in force.

The European Parliament in the Contested Union provides a systematic assessment of the real influence of the European Parliament (EP) in policy-making. Ten years after the coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, which significantly empowered Europe’s only directly elected institution, the contributions collected in this volume analyse whether, and under what conditions, the EP has been able to use its new powers and shape decisions. Going beyond formal or normative descriptions of the EP’s powers, this book provides an up-to-date and timely empirical assessment of the role of the EP in the European Union, focusing on key cases such as the reforms of the EU’s economic governance and asylum policy, the Brexit negotiations and the budget. The book challenges and qualifies the conventional view that the EP has become more influential after Lisbon. It shows that the influence of the EP is conditional on the salience of the negotiated policy for the Member States. When EU legislation touches upon ‘core state powers’, as well as when national financial resources are at stake, the role of the EP – notwithstanding its formal powers – is more constrained and its influence more limited. This book provides fresh light on the impact of the EP and its role in a more contested and politicised European Union. Bringing together an international team of top scholars in the field and analysing a wealth of new evidence, The European Parliament in the Contested Union challenges conventional explanations on the role of the EP, tracking down empirically its impact on key policies and processes. It will be of great interest to scholars of the European Union, European politics and policy-making. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,7, University of Flensburg, language: English, abstract: After the eastern enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 it became clear that the Union can not continue to function under the existing treaties and had to be reformed. The Treaty of Nice that came to force in February 2003 was supposed to reorganize the institutional structure of the EU but the reform was not sufficient. When the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TeCE) was signed in October 2004 it was not very well accepted by some of the Member States and became a subject of criticism mainly for its constitutional character. Objections were raised that this Treaty would transform the EU into some kind of a "superstate", which originated a discussion among the political discourse about the sovereignty of the Member States; the Treaty was then rejected in Netherlands and France. At the end of December 2007, after many months of comprehensive bargaining and discussions the Lisbon Treaty (the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), was signed in Portugal during the German presidency. This document is basically modified version of TeCE where the criticized points were either removed or adjusted to its objections. The Treaty came into force in 1 December 2009 following the ratification process in all the 27 Member States. This paper aims to provide a clear account on the changes that comes along with the Lisbon Treaty being in force. Even though the modifications do not have so far-reaching consequences as was previously planned within its unsuccessful predecessor, the European Constitution, the impacts are still substantive and deserve our attention and comprehensible demonstration. Hence the first part of the paper is dedicated to the account of the modifications brought in by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, mainly on how are these changes going to modify the i