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History shows that treaties grow into significance some while after they are signed. The Versaille treaty indirectly led to WWII; the infamous piece of paper, brought back from Berlin - the peace in our time that never was - told us a lot about the people who signed it; in the Middle East presidents and prime ministers have been assasinated for peace deals, years after the treaties they signed radicalised their opponents. Modern European treaties, functional as they are, have failed to trouble the public's imagination. But anyone who wants to know what Europe is for should look at the latest agreement.
The first treaty signed between the European nations is known as the Treaty of Rome. It established the European Community and dealt with the purpose of this coming together and the institutions which would serve the members. The next treaty was signed in Maastrict and it established the European Union. The EU is the Community plus the European judicial institutions, a home affairs policy, common foreign and security policy. Maastrict had an annex to the treaty known as the social chapter. John Major got an opt out so that its contents did not apply in the UK. The Amsterdam Treaty is the third in the series and amends both.
The EU now stands for achieving economic and social progress within the context of balanced and sustainable development. This is a new environmental clause and it is in this context that the EC has contracted out a study of the impact of energy conservation on employment. The number of Commissioners, who are like civil service heads of departments, is to be reduced from the date of the next EU enlargement. Member states currently have either one or two (Britain has two), but when the next countries join states will each have one. The way that decisions are reached in Europe will change. MEPs will be asked for their opinion on draft legislation more often than before (the assent procedure), while a new way of coming to agreement is introduced, called the co-decision procedure. But this system will not be used for EMU issues.
IN the UN, certain historically important nations have weightier votes than others. This is why the UN sometimes degenerates into a US v The Rest of the World, and the most powerful nation on earth doesn't give away goals. The European equivalent is the Council, made up of ministers from the states. Should legislation be decided by a simple majority vote? Should some things be accepted unanimously or not at all? What about qualified majority voting, like the English jury system which allows majority decisions reached by 10 out of 12 jurors but no less? In the European Council, qualified majority voting is 62 votes out of the 87 available. There are only 15 member countries, but some have just two votes and others (the UK, Germany, France and Italy) have 10 each. Following the Amsterdam Treaty, a number of areas previously subject to Council unanimity are now subject to qualified majority voting. The co-decision procedure, referred to earlier, is complicated, unwieldy but democratic in that it utilises the MEPs that we elect every five years. Under this process Europe's parliament gives an opinion on the first draft of legislation, gives its views again after the Council has agreed to it (via QMV), but at the end of the day can throw it out. The parliament effectively has a veto.
It doesn't exist anymore. The annex is abolished and the contents are incorporated into the treaty. As Britain signed the treaty in June, the provisions of the Social Chapter now apply to all 15 member states. (In practice, there will be some legislative instrument setting out details like how long the new government will have to implement Directives which the rest of Europe has already implemented.) The Directives are parental leave and works councils for workers in companies operating in several European states. All the areas in the old Social Chapter which required QMV in the Council will now be decided, in addition, by the co-decision procedure. As the socialists are the largest group in the European Parliament, while the Council of ministers tends to be conservative, this means that socially progressive/ social protection measures have a brighter future than before. The Employment Chapter is new to the treaty. It adds a new objective to the EU, to promote a high level of employment. Specifically, one of the Union's aims is now promoting a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce and labour markets responsive to economic change. The Council will draw up guidelines each year for an EU employment strategy and each member state will report annually on what it has done in the light of the guidelines in the field of employment. The article on discrimination now includes equal pay for work of equal value which is already enshrined in English law. Positive discrimination by member states gets the green light.
These are just the main points of the treaty.
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