The Treaty of Accession, the drafting of which was completed on
Wednesday, sets out the details for the integration of Cyprus, the
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Slovakia and Slovenia as new EU Member States by June 2004.
The final text of the document is largely based on the accession
negotiations between the EU and the accession candidates, which
were concluded at the Copenhagen summit in December 2002. Only
certain modifications having no budgetary impact were made.
Although still subject to the assent of the European Parliament,
the Treaty of Accession is due to be signed on 16 April 2003 at the
meeting of the European Council in Athens.
The Treaty of Nice, which came into force on 1 February 2003,
has paved the way for the Enlargement and completed the
institutional changes required for the accession of the new Member
States by increasing the size and powers of both the European
Parliament and the European Commission.
Under the Treaty of Nice, the new European Parliament, to be
elected in June 2004, will increase from 626 to 732 member
seats.
The Treaty of Nice includes new provisions for the European
Commission, which are due to come into effect on September 2004. As
of that date, the seats on the EU's executive body will be limited
to one per Member State. This means that the five larger member
States, namely the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, will no
longer be entitled to appoint a second Commissioner.
When the number of Member States reaches 27, as will happen
following the potential integration of Romania and Bulgaria by
2007, there will be fewer Commissioners than Member States.
As well as giving the President of the Commission increased
powers, the Treaty establishes a new system of voting in the
Council of Ministers. Specifically, the scope of qualified majority
voting will be increased against unanimity, to facilitate European
decision-making.
As an example, under the new rules the negotiation and
conclusion of international agreements on services and commercial
aspects of intellectual property, which presently require a
unanimous vote, will only require the qualified majority of Member
States' votes.
The Treaty of Nice further allows for a major reform of the EU's
judicial system, to tackle the problem of case overload and to
accelerate the delivery of judgements.
It is possible that the Treaty of Nice will soon be superseded
by the new EU Constitutional Treaty, which is currently being
drafted.
The Treaty of Nice is available at:
ue.eu.int/cigdocs/en/cig2000-EN.pdf
A summary of the Treaty can be found
here
