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EU: The Amsterdam Treaty signed

01 July 1997

The Amsterdam Treaty agreed in June was signed in Amsterdam on 2 October by the EU Foreign Ministers - not by the Prime Ministers as had been expected. The "official line" was that this was because it was not a "major" Treaty like the Maastricht Treaty and that citizens were not very interested because it was all about the way the EU institutions work. In fact there was far more interest by citizens, national and voluntary groups across Europe, by national parliaments and the European Parliament than in the Maastricht Treaty. There appears to be an attempt to "play down" the Amsterdam Treaty so that it will not face opposition when it has to be ratified by national parliaments.

Perhaps the EU governments had another reason. The Amsterdam Treaty is so complex that few of them understand how it is going to work in practice. This has been compounded by an extraordinary exercise in "simplification" - a new 314-page version has been published by the Council of the EU which puts the provisions in the order they will appear as amendments to the Treaty of European Union (TEU) and the Treaty establishing the European Communities (TEC). This means that, unlike the version produced on 19 June by the Dutch Presidency, all the provisions have been separated from the numerous Protocols and even more numerous Declarations (each in different sections). And, there is no index. Statewatch's analysis of the provisions on the new Title (immigration and asylum), the revised Title VI and on transparency will be in the next issue.

Declarations 44 and 45, on pages 295 and 296, try to deal with the problem created for the UK and Ireland if they wanted to "opt-into" any of the current or future provisions of the Schengen acquis. The Declarations, which do not have the same status as the Treaty provisions, say every attempt should be made to allow the two countries to participate and that the "opinion of the Commission" should be sought prior to any decision. However, the provision in the Protocol on the Schengen acquis still requires the unanimous agreement of the 13 Schengen member states.

Draft Treaty of Amsterdam, Council of the European Union, August 1997.