A simplified treaty for the European Union?

Published by Kogan Page on behalf of the Federal Trust.

Book abstract:

The idea for reorganising the complex collection of interlocking European Treaties in order to make them clearer was originally presented in the European Commission's opinion to the 1997 intergovernmental conference at Amsterdam. The European Commission has called for the different treaties to be brought together into one single clear and coherent text. Following a request by the European Commission, the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence has drafted 'A Basic Treaty for the European Union' which demonstrates that it is feasible to re-group the various Treaty texts.

The contributions in this volume analyse the draft produced by the EUI and comment on whether this reorganisation actually makes the Treaties more accessible to Europe's citizens. In doing so, they pose another question: is simplification sufficient, or has the time come for a Basic Treaty that really provides the EU with a proper constitution?

The ten contributors to this volume all devote considerable thought to the issues raised, approaching the subject from legal and political points of view, both as practitioners and as academics. Some question whether the project has achieved the first objective of making the Treaties accessible to the citizen, others argue that this can be seen only as the first step in a process of distilling the essence of what the EU is about, the first draft of what could become a written constitution. In addressing these questions, the authors make a valuable contribution to the wider debate on the future of Europe.

The volume is in two parts. The first part comprises the ten essays devoted to debating the merits and difficulties that such an exercise presents. The second reproduces the text of the Basic Treaty of the European Union, as drafted by the European University Institute.

The Federal Trust has as its key role enlightening the debate on good governance. This volume is a major contribution to this task on a European level.

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