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The Treaty Amendment Procedures and the Relationship between Article 31(3) TEU and the General Bridging Clause of Article 48(7) TEU

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2016

Robert Böttner
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European Constitutional Law Review , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , December 2016 , pp. 499 - 519
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Copyright © The Authors 2016 

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Footnotes

*

Robert Böttner, B.A., LL.M., is research assistant at the University of Erfurt and assistant professor at the University of Applied Sciences (HTWK) Leipzig.

References

1 H.-J. Blanke, ‘Article 1 TEU’, in H.-J. Blanke and S. Mangiameli (eds.), The Treaty on European Union (TEU) – A Commentary (Springer 2013) para. 63.

2 Blanke, supra n. 1, at para. 62.

3 Peers, S., ‘The Future of EU Treaty Amendments’, 31 Yearbook of European Law (2012) p. 17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 47 ff.

4 Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 53 ff.

5 ECJ 8 April 1976, Case 43/75, Defrenne, para. 58.

6 While the simplified revision procedures of Art. 48 TEU shall not apply to amendments of Protocols, there are a number of provisions that provide for simplified revision of the Protocols; see Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 66.

7 Only the ordinary revision procedure of the TEU (Art. 48, paras. 2-5) shall apply to the Euratom Treaty.

8 On the latter, see Hillion, C., ‘The European Union is dead. Long live the European Union … A Commentary on the Accession Treaty 2003’, 29 European Law Review (2004) p. 583 Google Scholar at p. 587; Ohler, C., ‘Artikel 48 EUV’, in E. Grabitz et al. (eds.), Das Recht der Europäischen Union: EUV/AEUV (C.H. Beck 2011)Google Scholar para. 22.

9 See also Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 19 ff.

10 L. Jimena Quesada, ‘The Revision Procedures of the Treaty’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, p. 323 at p. 326.

11 Busia, G., ‘Revisione del Trattato, ammissione di nuovi Stati e recess dall’Unione’, in F. Bassanini and G. Tiberi (eds.), Le nuove istituzioni europee [The new European institutions] (il Mulino 2010) p. 401 Google Scholar at p. 405.

12 Cf. Ohler, supra n. 8, at para. 29.

13 German Federal Constitutional Court, BVerfGE 123, 267 (385); Terhechte, J.P., ‘Der Vertrag von Lissabon: Grundlegende Verfassungsurkunde der europäischen Rechtsgemeinschaft oder technischer Änderungsvertrag?’, Europarecht (2008) p. 143 Google Scholar at p. 169; Granat, K., ‘Interparliamentary Cooperation and the Simplified Revision Procedures’, in N. Lupo and C. Fasone (eds.), Interparliamentary Cooperation in the Composite European Constitution (Hart 2016) p. 73 Google Scholar at p. 73.

14 Cf. Busia, supra n. 11, p. 404.

15 Namely, an amendment to the Protocol on transitional provisions and the addition of the Protocol on the concerns of the Irish people.

16 The Treaties contain other provisions which are worded in analogy to Art. 48(6) TEU but which are restricted to a specific area. These include the introduction of a common defence (Art. 42(2) TEU), the extension of the list of Union citizens’ rights (Art. 25(2) TFEU), the accession of the Union to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Art. 218(8)(1) second sentence TFEU), the introduction of a uniform electoral procedure for European Parliament elections (Art. 223(1) TFEU), the creation of jurisdiction for European intellectual property rights (Art. 262 TFEU) and the determination of the Union’s own resources (Art. 311(3) TFEU).

17 Granat, supra n. 13, at p. 77.

18 Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 32-33.

19 Ohler, supra n. 8, at para. 43.

20 See Art. 9 ff of the Act of Accession of Croatia, O.J. L 122/21 (2012).

21 See in detail Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 33 ff.

22 Decision 2011/199/EU, O.J. L 91/1 (2011).

23 German Federal Constitutional Court, 2 BvR 1390/12, Judgment of 18 March 2014 (BVerfGE 135, 317) – ESM/Fiscal Compact.

24 ECJ 27 November 2012, Case C-370/12, Pringle. The ECJ finds that the amendment simply ‘confirms that Member States have the power to establish a stability mechanism’ (at para. 72). The amendment is thus of merely declaratory nature.

25 See ECJ 27 November 2012, Case C-370/12, Pringle, para. 33; see also M. Nettesheim, ‘Normenhierarchien im EU-Recht’, Europarecht (2006) p. 737 at p. 742.

26 Grard, L., ‘Article IV-444’, in L. Burgorgue-Larsen et al. (eds.), Traité établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe, Partie I et IV (Bruylant 2007)Google Scholar at para. 2.

27 Council Decision 2004/927/EC of 22 December 2004 providing for certain areas covered by Title IV of Part Three of the Treaty establishing the European Community to be governed by the procedure laid down in Article 251 of that Treaty, O.J. 2004 L 396/45.

28 See Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 41-42.

29 See Art. 16 (5) TEU in conjunction with Art. 3 of the Protocol (No. 36) on transitional provisions.

30 V. Edjaharian, ‘Article 16 TEU’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, para. 88 ff.

31 Note that even if the bridging clause is applied and the Council could decide by qualified majority, Art. 293 TFEU still applies, according to which the Council can amend a Commission proposal only unanimously. On that, see Böttner, R., ‘Ein scharfes Schwert der Kommission? Überlegungen zu Artikel 293 AEUV’, Europarecht (2016) p. 105 Google Scholar at p. 113.

32 The clause on moving to the ordinary legislative procedure does not apply to the TEU. However, the TEU does not provide for the adoption of legislative acts anyway.

33 D. Winkler, ‘Artikel 353 AEUV’, in Grabitz et al., supra n. 8, para. 11.

34 This argument is derived by analogy from Art. 6 of Protocol No. 2 on the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, according to which the eight-week period for scrutiny of draft EU legislative acts by national parliaments will not start until the draft has been transmitted to the national parliaments in all official EU languages.

35 The threshold, similar to the subsidiarity review in Protocol No. 2, was foreseen in the early stage of the Convention; see Grard, supra n. 26, at para. 8.

36 One could argue that the subsidiarity control mechanism is concerned with the exercise of Union competences with regard to subsidiarity and that second chambers in bicameral systems, which usually represent the subnational level (and are hence also affected by subsidiarity concerns), should have an individual say in the subsidiarity check (Arts. 6 and 7 of Protocol No. 2). Art. 48(7) TEU, on the other hand, does not contain any such specification with regard to bicameral systems. Furthermore, the provision deals with procedural simplifications, following which a Member State can be outvoted (when decision-making moves from unanimity to qualified majority in the Council). In addition, the Art. 48 procedure, as opposed to the subsidiarity review, does not contain any threshold (foreseen by the original proposal; CIG 52/03 ADD 1 of 25 November 2003, p. 38) so that one single veto would cause the procedure to cease; increasing the number of veto players by granting each chamber a separate vote would make this procedure virtually impossible to achieve. Therefore, the Member State should cast a uniform vote when deciding on the use of the passerelle. See also on this issue P.G. Casalena, ‘Article 6 of Protocol (No. 1)’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, p. 1576 at para. 95 ff. With a differing view see Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 78, who argues that the absence of any provision on bicameral parliaments in the context of Art. 48(7) TEU means that it is open for the Member States to decide.

37 See, for example, Section 23i(2) of the Austrian Federal Constitutional Law (Bundesverfassungs-Gesetz): ‘To the extent the law of the European Union for the National Parliaments provides the possibility of the refusal of an initiative or a proposal concerning: 1. the change from unanimity to a qualified majority or 2. the change from a special legislation procedure to the regular legislation procedure, the National Council, with the approval of the Federal Council, may refuse such initiative or proposal within the terms provided by the law of the European Union’ (emphasis added). The same applies in France according to Art. 88-7 of the Constitution: ‘Par le vote d’une motion adoptée en termes identiques par l’Assemblée nationale et le Sénat, le Parlement peut s’opposer à une modification des règles d’adoption d’actes de l’Union européenne dans les cas prévus, au titre de la révision simplifiée des traités ou de la coopération judiciaire civile, par le traité sur l’Union européenne et le traité sur le fonctionnement de l’Union européenne, tels qu’ils résultent du traité signé à Lisbonne le 13 décembre 2007’ (emphasis added). Internal cooperation is also foreseen by Art. 11(5) of the Italian Law No. 234/2012 of 24 December 2012: ‘Nei casi di cui all’articolo 48, paragrafo 7, del Trattato sull’Unione europea e all’articolo 81, paragrafo 3, del Trattato sul funzionamento dell’Unione europea, la deliberazione delle Camere e’ resa entro il termine di sei mesi dalla trasmissione dell’atto dell’Unione europea alle Camere da parte delle competenti istituzioni dell’Unione stessa. In caso di deliberazione negativa di entrambe le Camere, esse ne danno immediata comunicazione a tali istituzioni, informando contestualmente il Governo’ (emphasis added).

In Germany, however, Section 10(1) of the Responsibility for Integration Act provides that ‘The following provisions shall apply to the rejection of a European Council initiative within the meaning of Article 48(7), third subparagraph, of the Treaty on European Union: 1. If an initiative relates primarily to an area in which exclusive legislative competence lies with the Federation, the Bundestag may decide that the initiative is to be rejected. 2. In all other cases, the Bundestag or the Bundesrat may decide that the initiative is to be rejected’ (emphasis added). Similarly, Poland seems to follow the approach that each parliamentary chamber may oppose an Article 48(7) initiative on its own: see Art. 148ca of the Sejm’s Rules of Procedure and Art. 75f and 75g of the Senate’s Rules of Procedure.

38 With the same view see Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 78.

39 See Granat, supra n. 13, at p. 84 ff.

40 See supra at n. 25.

41 Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 46.

42 See on the one hand Art. 48(7): ‘Where […] Title V of this Treaty provides for the Council to act by unanimity in a given area or case, the European Council may adopt a decision authorising the Council to act by a qualified majority in that area or in that case.’; and on the other Art. 31(1): ‘Decisions under this Chapter shall be taken by […] the Council acting unanimously, except where this Chapter provides otherwise’ in combination with Art. 31(3): ‘The European Council may unanimously adopt a decision stipulating that the Council shall act by a qualified majority in cases other than those referred to in paragraph 2’.

Title V contains two chapters. Chapter 1 (Arts. 21-22), however, does not contain any provision in which the Council is authorised to take a decision. Therefore, the reference in Art. 48(7) TEU to ‘Title V’ and the reference in Art. 31 TEU to ‘this Chapter’ cover the same provisions.

43 Karl, W., ‘Treaties, conflicts between’, in R. Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Vol. IV (North-Holland 2000) p. 935 Google Scholar at p. 936; Blanke, supra n. 1, at para. 71.

44 Blanke, supra n. 1, at para. 72.

45 Bonafè, B.I., ‘Art. 31’, in A. Tizzano (ed.), Trattati dell’Unione Europea, 2nd edn. (Giuffrè 2014) p. 266 Google Scholar at p. 272. This is the case, for example, in the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria.

46 Blanke, supra n. 1, at para. 74.

47 Some authors argue without further reasoning that Art. 31 (3) is lex specialis. See W. Wessels and F. Bopp, ‘The Institutional Architecture of Common Foreign and Security Policy after the Lisbon Treaty – Constitutional breakthrough or challenges ahead?’, CHALLENGE Research Paper No. 10 (2008), www.ceps.eu/system/files/book/1677.pdf, visited 1 October 2016, p. 24; Peers, supra n. 3, at p. 65; H.-H. Herrnfeld, ‘Artikel 48 EUV’, in J. Schwarze (ed.), EU-Verträge, 3rd edn. (Nomos 2012) para. 18; W. Meng, ‘Artikel 48 EUV’, in H. von der Groeben et al. (eds.), Europäisches Unionsrecht, 7th edn. (Nomos 2015) para. 24; W. Hummer, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in C. Vedder and W. Heintschel von Heinegg (eds.), Europäisches Unionsrecht: EUV, AEUV, Grundrechte-Charta; Handkommentar (Nomos 2012) para. 10; Booß, D., ‘Artikel 48 EUV’, in C.O. Lenz and K.-D. Borchardt (eds.), EU-Verträge: Kommentar nach dem Vertrag von Lissabon, 5th edn. (Bundesanzeiger 2010)Google Scholar para. 5. See also Wouters, J. et al., ‘The European Union’s External Relations after the Lisbon Treaty’, in S. Griller and J. Ziller (eds.), The Lisbon Treaty. EU Constitutionalism without a Constitutional Treaty? (Springer 2008) p. 143 Google Scholar at p. 163.

48 German Federal Constitutional Court, 2 BvE 2/08 and others, Judgment of 30 June 2009 (BVerfGE 123, 267), headnote 2a – Lisbon.

49 German Federal Constitutional Court, 2 BvR 2134, 2159/92, Judgment of 12 October 1993 (BVerfGE 89, 155) at p. 199 – Maastricht, and BVerfGE 123, 267, supra n. 48, at para. 312.

50 BVerfGE 123, 267, supra n. 48, at para. 317.

51 BVerfGE 123, 267, supra n. 48, at para. 318.

52 BVerfGE 123, 267, supra n. 48, at para. 319.

53 BVerfGE 123, 267, supra n. 48, at para. 320.

54 Act on the exercise of the responsibility for Integration of Bundestag and Bundesrat in matters of the European Union of 22 September 2009, BGBl. I, p. 3022, as amended by Art. 1 of the Act of 1 December 2009, BGBl. I, p. 3822; English version available at www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/bundestag/committees/a21/legalbasis/intvg.html, visited 1 October 2016.

55 Ohler, supra n. 8, at para. 54; W. Kaufmann-Bühler, ‘Artikel 42 EUV’, in Grabitz et al., supra n. 8, paras. 74 and 77; E. Regelsberger and D. Kugelmann, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in R. Streinz (ed.), EUV/AEUV, 2nd edn. (C.H. Beck 2012) at para. 14.

56 H.-J. Cremer, ‘Artikel 31 EUV para. 18 and Artikel 48 EUV para. 16’, in C. Calliess and M. Ruffert (eds.), EUV/AEUV. Kommentar, 5th edn. (C.H. Beck 2016).

57 M.F. Orzan, ‘Article 31’, in C. Curti Gialdino, Codice dell’Unione Europea [Code of the European Union] (Simone 2012) p. 331 at p. 333.

58 On unanimity voting in international organisations in general, see R. Böttner and R.A. Wessel, ‘Article 31 TEU’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, para. 7.

59 F. Terpan, ‘Article 24 TEU’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, para. 16 ff; Böttner and Wessel, supra n. 58, at paras. 13-15; Eeckhout suggests a fundamentally different interpretation of the notion of the exclusion of legislative acts. According to him, the ‘straightforward reading’ of this provision, as it is held also in this comment, ‘is difficult to justify in the light of the principle of effective Treaty interpretation’, as it would have been redundant to confirm – twice – that legislative acts should be excluded while it is clear from the TEU provisions already, that neither the ordinary nor a special legislative applies to Common Foreign and Security Policy. He therefore suggests that ‘exclusion of legislative acts’ should be read as meaning ‘exclusion of normative action producing legal effects in relation to third parties’, founding his criticism on two main arguments (see Eeckhout, P., EU External Relations Law, 2nd edn. (Oxford University Press 2011) at p. 478 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff).

60 See also Eeckhout, P., ‘The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy after Lisbon’, in A. Biondi et al. (eds.), EU Law after Lisbon (Oxford University Press 2012) p. 265 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 279 ff.

61 van Elsuwege, P., ‘EU External Action after the Collapse of the Pillar Structure: In Search of a New Balance between Delimitation and Consistency’, 47(4) CMLRev (2011), p. 987 Google Scholar at p. 999. See also W. Kaufmann-Bühler and N. Meyer-Landrut, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in Grabitz et al., supra n. 8, para. 10.

62 Terpan, supra n. 59, at para. 20.

63 See in detail Böttner and Wessel, supra n. 58, at paras. 32-35. Qualified majority voting is also possible in a limited number of other cases, e.g. the establishment and financing of a start-up fund for military and defence operations (Art. 41.3(3) TEU), the establishment of the European Defence Agency (Art. 45(2) TEU) and some decisions in relation to the Permanent Structured Cooperation (Art. 46 TEU) in the Common Security and Defence Policy. As a counterweight to these exceptions, the Treaty maintained the ‘emergency brake’ (as a codification of the 1966 Luxembourg Compromise) for situations in which a member of the Council declares that, for vital and stated reasons of national policy, it intends to oppose the adoption of a decision to be taken by qualified majority voting (see Böttner and Wessel, supra n. 58, at paras. 38-41).

64 Böttner and Wessel, supra n. 58, at paras. 50-53.

65 See Böttner and Wessel, supra n. 58, at para. 16 ff.

66 Cf. S. Marquardt and J.-C. Gaedtke, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in H. von der Groeben et al. (eds.), Europäisches Unionsrecht, 7th edn. (Nomos 2015) para. 2.

67 See supra n. 42.

68 See n. 44 and accompanying text.

69 For an application of Art. 48(7) TEU see also Regelsberger, E., ‘Von Nizza nach Lissabon – das neue konstitutionelle Angebot für die Gemeinsame Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der EU’, integration (2008) p. 266 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 273; Marquardt and Gaedtke, supra n. 66, at para. 12. The argument made by Rathke, H., ‘IntVG’, in A. von Arnauld and U. Hufeld (eds.), Systematischer Kommentar zu den Lissabon-Begleitgesetzen (Nomos 2010)Google Scholar para. 81 (combination of the special bridging clauses and Art. 48(7) TEU) and para. 97 (national parliaments have no veto under Art. 31 TEU) is not quite clear.

70 With the same view see K. Schmalenbach, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in H. Mayer and K. Stöger (eds.), Kommentar zu EUV und AEUV [Short Commentary on the European Union Treaties] (Manz 2013) para. 26; see also A. Lang, ‘Articolo 31 TUE’, in F. Pocar and M.C. Baruffi (eds.), Commentario Breve ai Trattati dell’Unione Europea, 2nd edn. (Cedam 2014) para. 4. W. Kaufmann-Bühler and N. Meyer-Landrut, ‘Artikel 31 EUV’, in Grabitz et al., supra n. 8, para. 37, who base the application of Art. 48(7) TEU on the fact that Art. 31(3) TEU does not give any further indications regarding the procedure for the use of the passerelle clause.

71 Kaufmann-Bühler and Meyer-Landrut, supra n. 70, at para. 37.

72 Terpan, supra n. 59, at paras. 19-21.

73 Terpan, supra n. 59, at para. 22.

74 Czech Constitutional Court, Pl. US 19/08 (Decision of 26 November 2008) Treaty of Lisbon I para. 162 ff (English translation available online, www.usoud.cz/en/decisions/20081126-pl-us-1908-treaty-of-lisbon-i-1/, visited 15 October 2016).

75 Rathke, supra n. 69, p. 229 at para. 92.

76 Piris, J.-C., The Lisbon Treaty: A Legal and Political Analysis (Cambridge University Press 2010) p. 262 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also E. Denza, ‘Article 48 TEU’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, paras. 47-54 and P.G. Casalena, ‘Protocol No. 1 (Article 6)’, in Blanke and Mangiameli, supra n. 1, paras. 90-102.

77 Cf. Schmalenbach, supra n. 70, at para. 27.