Amsterdam and Nice Treaties

             The European Union is based on a number of Treaties. Each of these Treaties taking the development of the Union that little bit further. It is my aim throughout my report highlight two of these Treaties, Amsterdam and Nice, and give evidence as to why a reform process was necessary after the Amsterdam treaty. I will then examine two institutions of the Union in depth and attempt to explain how much reform has been achieved as a result of selected Treaties. Treaties can be revised by an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), which consists of representatives from the governments of the member states, brought together with the purpose of reaching agreements on changes thought to be needed. A number of people representing the governments of the Member States and the European Commission have the task of doing the relevant preparatory research essential to the development of the conference. I will begin by looking at the Amsterdam treaty.
             On June 17 1997, the political leaders of each member state of the European Union agreed on a new Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty. The main objectives of the treaty were to create political and institutional conditions whereby the European Union could rise to meet the challenges that lay ahead, such as enlargement, the fight against terrorism and threats to public health.
             With regards to the Enlargement process, the Amsterdam Treaty took into account that the European Union was still operating under the same rules it had when there was only six members. At the time of the Amsterdam treaty there were fifteen members and more on the way, so renegotiation of the rules and institutions was essential if there was to be any hope of the Union functioning after enlarging. Areas needing to be reformed were the composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council and the extension of qualified majority voting.
             Qualified majority voting was essential to the successive enlargements of the EU and although it already applied to a large number of policies, several important issues remained subject to the unanimity rule.