Lisbon Treaty, international agreement that amended the Maastricht Treaty, Treaties of Rome, and other documents to simplify and streamline the institutions that govern the European Union (EU).
Proposed in 2007, the Lisbon Treaty was ratified by most member states in 2008, but a referendum in Ireland—the only country that put the Lisbon agreement to a public vote—rejected it on June 12, 2008, thus jeopardizing the entire treaty. More than a year later, on October 2, 2009, Ireland held a second referendum, which passed. Poland’s government also had expressed reservations, but it ratified the treaty a week after the Irish vote, after securing opt-outs from EU policy on some social issues, such as abortion. The Czech Republic was the last remaining holdout: though its Parliament had ratified the treaty, the country’s president, Václav Klaus, withheld his signature. Finally, after the Czech courts ruled that the treaty did not violate the country’s constitution, Klaus signed it on November 3, 2009. The Lisbon Treaty, thus ratified by all 27 member states, entered into force on December 1, 2009.
While it was not explicitly called a European constitution, the treaty addressed a number of issues that had been central to the 2004 EU draft constitution, an initiative that was scuttled after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected it in 2005. Under the amendments of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Community—which had provided the economic framework upon which the EU was built—disappeared, and its powers and structure were incorporated into the EU. Moreover, the office of a permanent EU president was created, with the president chosen by the leaders of the member countries from a pool of candidates that they had selected. The leader holding this two-and-a-half-year post, officially called the president of the European Council, would provide a “face” for the EU in matters of Union policy. (The rotating EU presidency, whereby each member country assumes a leadership role for a period of six months, was retained, although its mandate would be narrowed.) Another new position, that of high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, gathered the EU’s two foreign affairs portfolios into a single office, with the goal of creating a more robust and unified European foreign policy. The power of the European Parliament also was enhanced and its number of seats revised. Additionally, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, initially proposed at the Council of Nice in 2000, entered into force as part of the Lisbon Treaty. It spelled out a host of civil, political, economic, and social rights guaranteed to all citizens of the EU.
Perhaps the most sweeping changes, though, were to the voting mechanisms that determined EU policy. Within the Council of the European Union—the EU’s main decision-making body—the system of qualified majority voting (QMV), previously used only in certain circumstances, was extended to more policy areas, thereby easing the decision-making process. In addition, for most decisions, 55 percent of member states, provided they represented 65 percent of the EU’s population, would be able to approve a measure. This “double majority” voting rule, which represents a simplification of the former system of weighted votes, would be phased in over time. Matters of defense, foreign policy, social security, and taxation would still require unanimous approval, however. While QMV and the “double majority” rule were designed to streamline decision making at the highest levels, critics argued that they would reduce the influence of smaller countries at the expense of larger ones. Partly to address this, the Lisbon Treaty introduced the European Citizens’ Initiative, a process by which EU citizens could directly petition the European Commission (the EU’s main executive body) by gathering one million signatures from a number of member states.
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At the time of the Lisbon Treaty’s ratification, the EU was experiencing a period of territorial expansion and economic growth. The debt crisis that would hobble the euro zone economy was still on the horizon, and Bulgaria and Romania had completed the accession process just two years earlier. Little public attention was paid to Article 50 of the treaty, which outlined the provisions under which a country could leave the EU. As the Greek economy spiraled out of control in 2010 and austerity measures failed to slow its descent, EU leaders began to seriously address the possibility of a “Grexit” (“Greek exit”) from the euro zone and the EU. Article 50 dealt with a country’s voluntary separation from the EU, however, and the mechanisms under which a member might be expelled were unclear. Greece ultimately reached an agreement with its creditors and the immediate crisis was averted, but the economic downturn was just one of a series of challenges to befall the EU in the early 2010s. Russia’s forcible annexation of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea in 2014 and a migrant crisis that saw hundreds of thousands of refugees seek asylum in Europe fueled a growing Euroskeptic sentiment that manifested most overtly in a June 2016 “in or out” referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the EU. On June 23, 2016, some 52 percent of British voters chose to leave the EU. British Prime Minister David Cameron immediately announced that he would step down, and EU officials stated that no formal or informal discussions of Britain’s relationship with the EU would begin until the United Kingdom formally initiated Article 50 proceedings.