The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties

II. THE AMSTERDAM TREATY
The Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties
establishing the European Communities and certain related acts
[2]
, signed in
Amsterdam on 2 October 1997, entered into force on 1 May 1999.
[2]
OJ C 340, 10.11.1997, p. 115
.

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A.
Increased powers for the Union
1.
European Community
With regard to objectives, special prominence was given to balanced and sustainable
development and a high level of employment. A mechanism was set up to coordinate
Member States’ policies on employment, and there was a possibility of some
Community measures in this area. The Agreement on Social Policy was incorporated
into the EC Treaty with some improvements (removal of the opt-out). The Community
method now applied to some major areas which had hitherto come under the third pillar,
such as asylum, immigration, crossing external borders, combating fraud, customs
cooperation and judicial cooperation in civil matters, in addition to some of the
cooperation under the Schengen Agreement, which the EU and Communities endorsed
in full.
2.
European Union
Intergovernmental cooperation in the areas of police and judicial cooperation was
strengthened by defining objectives and precise tasks and creating a new legal
instrument similar to a directive. The instruments of the common foreign and security
policy were developed later, in particular by creating a new instrument, the common
strategy, a new office, the ‘Secretary-General of the Council responsible for the CFSP’,
and a new structure, the ‘Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit’.
B.
A stronger position for Parliament
1.
Legislative power
Under the codecision procedure, which was extended to the existing 15 legal bases
under the EC Treaty, Parliament and the Council became co-legislators on a practically
equal footing. With the exception of agriculture and competition policy, the codecision
procedure applied to all the areas where the Council was permitted to take decisions
by qualified majority. In four cases (Articles 18, 42 and 47 and Article 151 on cultural
policy, which remained unchanged) the codecision procedure was combined with a
requirement for a unanimous decision in the Council. The other legislative areas where
unanimity was required were not subject to codecision.
2.
Power of control
As well as voting to approve the Commission as a body, Parliament also had a vote
to approve in advance the person nominated as President of the future Commission
(Article 214).
3.
Election and statute of Members
With regard to the procedure for elections to Parliament by direct universal suffrage
(Article 190 of the EC Treaty), the Community’s power to adopt common principles
was added to the existing power to adopt a uniform procedure. A legal basis making it
possible to adopt a single statute for MEPs was included in the same article. However,
there was still no provision allowing measures to develop political parties at European
level (cf. Article 191).

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C.
Closer cooperation
For the first time, the Treaties contained general provisions allowing some Member
States under certain conditions to take advantage of common institutions to organise
closer cooperation between themselves. This option was in addition to the closer
cooperation covered by specific provisions, such as economic and monetary union,
creation of the area of freedom, security and justice and incorporating the Schengen
provisions. The areas where closer cooperation was possible were the third pillar and,
under particularly restrictive conditions, matters subject to non-exclusive Community
competence. The conditions which any closer cooperation had to fulfil and the planned
decision-making procedures had been drawn up in such a way as to ensure that this
new factor in the process of integration would remain exceptional and, at all events,
could only be used to move further towards integration and not to take retrograde steps.
D.
Simplification
The Amsterdam Treaty removed from the European Treaties all provisions that the
passage of time had rendered void or obsolete, while ensuring that this did not affect
the legal effects derived from them in the past. It also renumbered the Treaty articles.
For legal and political reasons the Treaty was signed and submitted for ratification in
the form of amendments to the existing Treaties.