Treaty of Amsterdam

Treaty of Amsterdam
Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts
	European leaders in Amsterdam, 1997
Type	Amender of the TEU, the TEC, the TEAEC, and the TECSC
Signed	2 October 1997
Location	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Effective	1 May 1999
Signatories	15 EU member states Austria ; Belgium ; Denmark ; Finland ; France ; Germany ; Greece ; Ireland ; Italy ; Luxembourg ; Netherlands ; Portugal ; Spain ; Sweden ; United Kingdom ;
Depositary	Government of Italy
Citations	Prior amendment treaty:; Maastricht Treaty (1992) ; Subsequent amendment treaty: Nice Treaty (2001)
Languages	12 EU languages Danish ; Dutch ; English ; Finnish ; French ; German ; Greek ; Irish ; Italian ; Portuguese ; Spanish ; Swedish ;
Full text
	Treaty of Amsterdam at Wikisource
	After amendments made by the Amsterdam Treaty:; Consolidated version of EURATOM treaty (1997) ; Consolidated version of the ECSC treaty (1997) ; Consolidated version of TEC (1997) ; Consolidated version of TEU (1997)

Last updated April 07, 2024

The Treaty of Amsterdam, officially the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts, was signed on 2 October 1997, and entered into force on 1 May 1999;^[1] it made substantial changes to the Treaty of Maastricht, which had been signed in 1992.

Under the Treaty of Amsterdam, member states agreed to transfer certain powers from national governments to the European Parliament across diverse areas, including legislating on immigration, adopting civil and criminal laws, and enacting common foreign and security policy (CFSP), as well as implementing institutional changes for expansion as new member nations join the EU.

Background

The treaty was the result of long negotiations which began in Messina, Italy, on 2 June 1995, nearly forty years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and reached completion in Amsterdam on 18 June 1997. Following the formal signing of the Treaty on 2 October 1997, the member states engaged in an equally long and complex ratification process. The European Parliament endorsed the treaty on 19 November 1997, and after two referendums and 13 decisions by parliaments, the member states finally concluded the procedure.

The Treaty of Amsterdam comprises 13 protocols, 51 declarations adopted by the Conference, and eight declarations by member states, plus amendments to the existing treaties set out in 15 articles. Article 1 (containing 16 paragraphs) amends the general provisions of the Treaty on European Union and covers the CFSP and cooperation in criminal and police matters. The next four articles (70 paragraphs) amend the EC Treaty, the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty (which expired in 2002), the Euratom Treaty, and the Act concerning the election of the European Parliament. The final provisions contain four articles. The new treaty also set out to simplify the Community Treaties, deleting more than 56 obsolete articles and renumbering the rest in order to make the whole more legible. By way of example, Article 189b on the codecision procedure became Article 251.

The most pressing concerns of ordinary Europeans, such as their legal and personal security, immigration, and fraud prevention, were all dealt with in other chapters of the treaty. In particular, the EU became responsible for legislating on immigration, civil law or civil procedure, insofar as this is necessary for the free movement of persons within the EU. At the same time, intergovernmental co-operation was intensified in the police and criminal justice field so that member states should be able to coordinate their activities more effectively. The Union aims to establish an area of freedom, security and justice for its citizens. The Schengen Agreements have now been incorporated into the legal system of the EU (Ireland remains outside the Schengen agreement due to its open border with the United Kingdom, see Common Travel Area for details).

The treaty lays down new principles and responsibilities in the field of the common foreign and security policy, with the emphasis on projecting the EU's values to the outside world, protecting its interests, and reforming its modes of action. The European Council will lay down common strategies, which will then be put into effect by the Council acting by a qualified majority, subject to certain conditions. In other cases, some member states may choose to abstain "constructively", i.e. without actually preventing actions being taken.

The treaty introduced a High Representative for EU Foreign Policy who, together with the Presidents of the Council and the European Commission, puts a "name and a face" on EU policy to the outside world. Although the Amsterdam Treaty did not provide for a common defence, it did increase the EU's responsibilities for peacekeeping and humanitarian work, in particular by forging closer links with Western European Union.

Institutions

As for the institutions, there were two major reforms concerning the co-decision procedure (the legislative procedure involving the European Parliament and the council), affecting its scope—most legislation was adopted by the co-decision procedure—and its detailed procedures, with the parliament playing a much stronger role. The President of the commission will also have to earn the personal trust of the parliament, which will give them the authority to lay down the commission's policy guidelines and play an active part in choosing the Members of the commission by deciding on their appointment by common accord with the national governments. These provisions make the Commission more politically accountable, particularly vis-à-vis the European Parliament. Finally, the new Treaty enables, under very strict conditions, closer co-operation between member states which so wish. Closer co-operation may be established, on a proposal from the commission, in cases where it is not possible to take joint action, provided that such steps do not undermine the coherence of the EU or the rights and equality of its citizens.

Challenges

The Amsterdam Treaty did not settle all institutional questions. Work was still in progress on reforming the institutions to make them capable of operating effectively and democratically in a much enlarged EU. The most pressing issues were the composition of the commission and the weighting of member states' votes upon qualified majority voting. These questions were addressed in the Treaty of Lisbon.

Signatures


Erik Derycke Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs	Niels Helveg Petersen Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs	Tarja Halonen Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs	Hubert Védrine French Minister of Foreign Affairs	Theodoros Pangalos Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs

Ray Burke Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs	Lamberto Dini Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs	Jacques Poos Luxembourgish Minister for Foreign Affairs	Hans van Mierlo Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs	Jaime Gama Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs

Abel Matutes Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs	Doug Henderson British Minister of State for Europe	Lena Hjelm-Wallén Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs	Klaus Kinkel German Minister of Foreign Affairs	Wolfgang Schüssel Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs

Withdrawal

On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom left the European Union and so withdrew from the treaty.

EU evolution timeline

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 européenne). 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.

Legend:
  S: signing
  F: entry into force
  T: termination
  E: expiry
    de facto supersession
  Rel. w/ EC/EU framework:
   de facto inside
   outside

European Union (EU)

[ Cont. ]

European Communities (EC)

(Pillar I)

European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom)

[ Cont. ]

/

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

(Distr. of competences)

European Economic Community (EEC)

Schengen Rules

European Community (EC)

'TREVI'

Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, pillar II)

/

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)

[Cont.]

Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC, pillar II)

Anglo-French alliance

[Defence arm handed to NATO]

European Political Co-operation (EPC)

Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP, pillar III)

Western Union (WU)

/

Western European Union (WEU)

[Tasks defined following the WEU's 1984 reactivation handed to the EU]

[Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE]

[Cont.]

Council of Europe (CoE)

Entente Cordiale
S: 8 April 1904

Dunkirk Treaty ^{[lower-roman 1]}
S: 4 March 1947
F: 8 September 1947
E: 8 September 1997

Brussels Treaty ^{[lower-roman 1]}
S: 17 March 1948
F: 25 August 1948
T: 30 June 2011

London and Washington treaties^{[lower-roman 1]}
S: 5 May/4 April 1949
F: 3 August/24 August 1949

Paris treaties: ECSC and EDC ^{[lower-roman 2]}
S: 18 April 1951/27 May 1952
F: 23 July 1952/—
E: 23 July 2002/—

Protocol Modifying and
Completing the Brussels Treaty ^{[lower-roman 1]}
S: 23 October 1954
F: 6 May 1955

Rome treaties: EEC and EAEC
S: 25 March 1957
F: 1 January 1958

WEU-CoE agreement ^{[lower-roman 1]}
S: 21 October 1959
F: 1 January 1960

Brussels (Merger) Treaty ^{[lower-roman 3]}
S: 8 April 1965
F: 1 July 1967

Davignon report
S: 27 October 1970

European Council conclusions
S: 2 December 1975

Single European Act (SEA)
S: 17/28 February 1986
F: 1 July 1987

Schengen Treaty and Convention
S: 14 June 1985/19 June 1990
F: 26 March 1995

Maastricht Treaty ^{[lower-roman 4]}^{[lower-roman 5]}
S: 7 February 1992
F: 1 November 1993

Amsterdam Treaty
S: 2 October 1997
F: 1 May 1999

Nice Treaty
S: 26 February 2001
F: 1 February 2003

Lisbon Treaty ^{[lower-roman 6]}
S: 13 December 2007
F: 1 December 2009

1 2 3 4 5 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.

Related Research Articles

The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union in 1993. In the popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar.

The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and for common foreign and security policies, and a number of changes to the European institutions and their decision taking procedures, not least a strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament and more majority voting on the Council of Ministers. Although these were seen by many to presage a "federal Europe", key areas remained inter-governmental with national governments collectively taking key decisions. This constitutional debate continued through the negotiation of subsequent treaties, culminating in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.

The Western European Union was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The WEU implemented the Modified Brussels Treaty. During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU member-states, plus the United States and Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The Treaty of Nice was signed by European leaders on 26 February 2001 and came into force on 1 February 2003.

The Treaty of Rome, or EEC Treaty, brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the best known of the European Communities (EC). The treaty was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and it came into force on 1 January 1958. Originally the "Treaty establishing the European Economic Community", and now continuing under the name "Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union", it remains one of the two most important treaties in what is now the European Union (EU).

The Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951 between France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which subsequently became part of the European Union. The treaty came into force on 23 July 1952 and expired on 23 July 2002, exactly fifty years after it came into effect.

The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community (EEC); the last of which was renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union. The European Union was established at that time more as a concept rather than an entity, while the Communities remained the actual subjects of international law impersonating the rather abstract Union, becoming at the same time its first pillar. In the popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used interchangeably with the plural phrase, in the sense of referring to all three entities.

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The Euratom Treaty, officially the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, established the European Atomic Energy Community. It was signed on 25 March 1957 at the same time as the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community.

The European Political Co-operation (EPC) was the common term for the co-ordination of foreign policy between member states of the European Communities (EC) from its inception in 1970 until the EPC was superseded by the new European Union's (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in November 1993.

The Davignon report, also referred to as the Luxembourg report, published on 27 October 1970, was a report on the future foreign policy of European Economic Community member nations. It was written by a council chaired by Étienne Davignon of the Belgian Foreign Office. The committee was appointed by the Council of the European Communities to make proposals on political cooperation between the member states. It recommended that member states should try to speak with a single voice on international problems, a proposal that was approved by all six member governments. It resulted first in European Political Cooperation and later in the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy in 1992.

The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western Union (WU) between 1948 and 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB) and served as the founding treaty of the Western European Union (WEU) until its termination in 2010. The treaty provided for the organisation of military, economic, social and cultural cooperation among member states as well as a mutual defence clause.

This is a timeline of European Union history and its previous development.

The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed on 4 March 1947, between France and the United Kingdom in Dunkirk (France) as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance against a possible German attack in the aftermath of World War II. It entered into force on 8 September 1947 and according with article VI paragraph 2 of its text it remained in force for a period of fifty years.

The Treaty of Lisbon is an international agreement that amends the two treaties which form the constitutional basis of the European Union (EU). The Treaty of Lisbon, which was signed by all EU member states on 13 December 2007, entered into force on 1 December 2009. It amends the Maastricht Treaty (1992), known in updated form as the Treaty on European Union (2007) or TEU, as well as the Treaty of Rome (1957), known in updated form as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007) or TFEU. It also amends the attached treaty protocols as well as the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM).

The Western Union (WU), also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO), was the European military alliance established between France, the United Kingdom (UK) and the three Benelux countries in September 1948 in order to implement the Treaty of Brussels signed in March the same year. Under this treaty the signatories, referred to as the five powers, agreed to collaborate in the defence field as well as in the political, economic and cultural fields.

The Treaties of the European Union are a set of international treaties between the European Union (EU) member states which sets out the EU's constitutional basis. They establish the various EU institutions together with their remit, procedures and objectives. The EU can only act within the competences granted to it through these treaties and amendment to the treaties requires the agreement and ratification of every single signatory.

References

↑ Text of "Treaty of Amsterdam"

External links

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[ref-1-2] 1 2 3 4 5 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.

[ref-6-3] 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.

[ref-3-4] The European Communities obtained common institutions and a shared legal personality (i.e. ability to e.g. sign treaties in their own right).

[ref-2-5] 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.

[ref-4-6] 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.

[ref-5-7] 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.

[tofa-1] Text of "Treaty of Amsterdam"

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[lower-roman 1]

[lower-roman 2]

[lower-roman 3]

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