Libertas.org

The Lisbon Treaty which was signed by Europe’s leaders on December 13th 2007 seeks to establish the European Union on an entirely new legal basis.  In effect, its amendments to the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (TEC) create a de facto constitution, comprising more than 90% of the substance of the EU Constitutional Treaty rejected by the people of the Netherlands and France in 2005.

European leaders have claimed that the purpose of this Treaty is to streamline the legislative process in the European institutions yet a recent report by Professor Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics has found that legislation has actually progressed more swiftly since the 2004 when ten new member states joined the EU. Earlier this year, a report by the Science-Po University in Paris showed that new rules have been adopted 25% faster than prior to enlargement and that the Nice voting arrangements were generally seem to be working well.