I trattati che hanno fatto l’Europa

Abstract

This essay examines the treaties that have contributed to the construction of what is now the European Union, starting from the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. It focuses on the most important treaties, the aim being to trace their inter-relationships so as to get a better picture of the genealogy of the current treaty framework, its inherited characteristics as well as more recent innovations. It looks not at the substantive content of the treaties, but rather at their architecture and interrelationships. Despite the almost uninterrupted process of reform over the last fifteen years, the structures of the European Union display a high degree of continuity and are strongly path-dependent. This essay examines three phases in the development of the treaties. The first phase is the one in which the treaty system was initially established, and which saw the emergence of the distinctive characteristics of the legal order of the ‘European Communities’, legally distinct yet closely integrated. The second phase was marked by growing complexity and at the same time by growing fragmentation and differentiation. It was characterised by attempts to incorporate new forms of integration into the framework and by the creation of a new organisation alongside the European Communities: the European Union, with its own treaty, specific competences and legal nature. A third phase was marked by a failed attempt to manifest in treaty form the constitutional character of the treaties and by an (only partially successful) attempt to simplify the treaty structure. These experiments and the current treaty framework, which derives from the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon, are testament to the resilience and adaptability of the treaties.