Treaty of Nice
The Treaty of Nice has niow been succeeded by the Lisbon Treaty.
The Nice Treaty was adopted on 11 December 2000 after the longest ever European Summit.
The member states strongly defended their own interests, which led to lengthy negotiations and some bizarre compromises, for example, the weighting of votes in the Council.
The most important conditions of the Treaty of Nice concerned the adjustment of the EU institutions to accommodate an enlarged Union of 25, and later 27 or 28 members.
In a non-binding declaration and in a binding protocol, the Treaty of Nice defines how the main EU institutions will function when the process of enlargement is completed.
The Treaty was signed on 26 February 2001 and entered into force on 1 February 2003, after it had first been rejected in Ireland by a referendum in June 2001, but adopted after a second referendum in October 2002.
Notes
The Nice Summit also solemnly proclaimed the European Charter of Fundamental Rights as a political declaration.
Links
You can download a readable version of the Nice Treaty and a commentary book about the Nice summit from the following websites:
EU/EC Treaties after Nice - The short reader-friendly edition with the most mportant articles of the EU/EC treaties as amended by the Treaty of Nice
http://europa.eu/legislation_s......aties/nice_treaty/index_en.htm