European Union, EU
- (Photo: Court of Auditors)
The Lisbon Treaty provides the EU with a full legal personality in Art. 47 TEU and has replaced the European Community. It permits the Union to enter into international agreements with other states and international organisations.
The new European Union looks like a state, seen from other states. With a President, a government, a foreign minister, a parliament and a federal court with supremacy over national institutions and a monopoly to interpret Union law in Art. 344 TFEU.
The Union claims legal primacy over the member states in all areas covered by the Treaties. The EU Court insist also on primacy towards the national constitutions.
This has not been accepted by the German Constitutional Court in a verdict from 30 June 2009. Ireland is the only EU country which has explicitly accepted the full principle of primacy of EU law.
The principle is stated in Declaration number 17 in the Lisbon Treaty.
The EU succeeded the European Communities, EC. The new abbreviation was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 as a name for the extended cooperation then based on three “pillars”.
1. The supra-national Community pillar incorporating the three communities which existed prior to the Treaty on European Union: the European Economic Community, the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Coal and Steel Community.
The founding Treaty on the European Economic Community, EEC, was renamed the European Community, EC.
Together with two “inter-governmental” pillars, where states cooperated with one another in:
2. Foreign and Security Policy.
3. Justice and Home Affairs Policy.
The Lisbon Treaty has abolished the pillars. In legal terms, the Union has become a state above and in cooperation and competition with the 27 member states.
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