Legal structure of the European Union from 1993 to 2009
Between 1993 and 2009, the
European Union
(EU) legally comprised three pillars. This structure was introduced with the
Treaty of Maastricht
on 1 November 1993, and was eventually abandoned on 1 December 2009 upon the entry into force of the
Treaty of Lisbon
, when the EU obtained a consolidated
legal personality
.
- The
European Communities
pillar handled
economic
,
social
and
environmental policies
. It comprised the
European Community
(EC), the
European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC, until its expiry in 2002), and the
European Atomic Energy Community
(EURATOM).
- The
Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) pillar took care of foreign policy and military matters.
- Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters
(PJCCM) brought together co-operation in the fight against crime. This pillar was originally named
Justice and Home Affairs
(JHA)
Overview
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Within each pillar, a different balance was struck between the
supranational
and
intergovernmental
principles.
Supranationalism
was strongest in the first pillar. Its function generally corresponded at first to the three European Communities (
European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC),
European Economic Community
(EEC) and
Euratom
) whose organisational structure had already been unified in 1965?67, through the
Merger Treaty
. Later, through the
Treaty of Maastricht
the word "Economic" was removed from the EEC, so it became simply the EC. Then with the
Treaty of Amsterdam
additional areas would be transferred from the third pillar to the first. In 2002, the ECSC (which had a lifetime of 50 years) ceased to exist because the treaty which established it, the
Treaty of Paris
, had expired.
In the CFSP and PJCCM pillars the powers of the
European Parliament
, the
Commission
and
European Court of Justice
with respect to the
Council
were significantly limited, without however being altogether eliminated. The balance struck in the first pillar was frequently referred to as the "
community method
", since it was that used by the European Community.
Pillar II: Common Foreign and Security Policy (Intergovernmental cooperation method)
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Foreign policy
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Security policy
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Pillar III: Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (Intergovernmental cooperation method)
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History
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1993: Origin
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The pillar structure had its historical origins in the negotiations leading up to the
Maastricht Treaty
. It was desired to add powers to the Community in the areas of foreign policy, security and defence policy, asylum and immigration policy, criminal co-operation, and judicial co-operation.
However, some member-states opposed the addition of these powers to the Community on the grounds that they were too sensitive to national sovereignty for the community method to be used, and that these matters were better handled intergovernmentally. To the extent that at that time the Community dealt with these matters at all, they were being handled intergovernmentally, principally in
European Political Cooperation
(EPC).
As a result, these additional matters were not included in the European Community; but were tacked on externally to the European Community in the form of two additional 'pillars'. The first additional pillar (Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP) dealt with foreign policy, security and defence issues, while the second additional pillar (JHA, Justice and Home Affairs), dealt with the remainder.
1999 and 2003: Amendments
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Amendments by the
treaty of Amsterdam
and the
treaty of Nice
made the additional pillars increasingly supranational. Most important among these were the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar, effected by the Amsterdam treaty. Thus the third pillar was renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters, or PJCCM. The term
Justice and Home Affairs
was still used to cover both the third pillar and the transferred areas.
Since the end of
World War II
,
sovereign
European
countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or
pooled sovereignty
) in an increasing number of areas, in the
European integration project
or the
construction of Europe
(
French
:
la construction europeenne
). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the
European Union
(EU)?the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the
European Communities
(EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the
Schuman Declaration
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Although not EU treaties
per se
, these treaties affected the
development
of the EU defence arm, a main part of the CFSP. The Franco-British alliance established by the Dunkirk Treaty was
de facto
superseded by WU. The CFSP pillar was bolstered by some of the security structures that had been established within the remit of the 1955
Modified Brussels Treaty
(MBT). The Brussels Treaty was
terminated
in 2011, consequently dissolving the WEU, as the
mutual defence clause
that the Lisbon Treaty provided for EU was considered to render the WEU superfluous. The EU thus
de facto
superseded the WEU.
- ^
Plans to establish a
European Political Community
(EPC) were shelved following the French failure to ratify the
Treaty establishing the European Defence Community
(EDC). The EPC would have combined the ECSC and the EDC.
- ^
The
European Communities
obtained common institutions and a shared
legal personality
(i.e. ability to e.g. sign treaties in their own right).
- ^
The treaties of Maastricht and Rome form the EU's
legal basis
, and are also referred to as the
Treaty on European Union
(TEU) and the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
(TFEU), respectively. They are amended by secondary treaties.
- ^
Between the EU's founding in 1993 and consolidation in 2009, the union consisted of
three pillars
, the first of which were the European Communities. The other two pillars consisted of additional areas of cooperation that had been added to the EU's remit.
- ^
The consolidation meant that the EU inherited the European Communities'
legal personality
and that the
pillar system was abolished
, resulting in the EU framework as such covering all policy areas. Executive/legislative power in each area was instead determined by a
distribution of competencies
between
EU institutions
and
member states
. This distribution, as well as treaty provisions for policy areas in which unanimity is required and
qualified majority voting
is possible, reflects the depth of EU integration as well as the EU's partly
supranational
and partly
intergovernmental
nature.
2009: Abolition
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In a speech before the Nice Conference,
Joschka Fischer
, then Foreign Minister of Germany, called for a simplification of the European Union. One of these core ideas was to abolish the pillar structure, and replace it with a merged
legal personality
for the Union. This idea was included in the
Treaty of Lisbon
, which entered into force on 1 December 2009. With a legal personality,
Union
is, for instance, able to be part of international treaties. The Treaty of Lisbon also states that "the Union shall replace and succeed the European Community," with the effect that, once the Treaty entered into force, the EU obtained the membership of the
World Trade Organization
(WTO) which had belonged to the
European Communities
pillar.
The abolition of the "3-pillar structure" was welcomed by practitioners and academics who had long considered the 'pillar metaphor" to be unrealistic, if not absurd. The idea that one pillar could be the Communities, while the other two were merely "policies" or "cooperation" was scarcely credible.
In the Lisbon Treaty the distribution of competences in various policy areas between Member States and the Union was reorganised into the following scheme:
Competences of the
European Union
in relation to those of its
member states
[1]
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The Union has exclusive competence to make directives and conclude international agreements when provided for in a Union legislative act as to …
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Member States cannot exercise competence in areas where the Union has done so, that is …
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Union exercise of competence shall not result in Member States being prevented from exercising theirs in …
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- research, technological development and
(outer) space
- development cooperation, humanitarian aid
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The Union coordinates Member States policies or implements supplemental to their common policies not covered elsewhere in …
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The Union can carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement Member States' actions in …
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- the protection and improvement of human health
- industry
- culture
- tourism
- education
, youth,
sport
and vocational training
- civil protection (disaster prevention)
- administrative cooperation
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See also
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External links
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