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E-Learning Unit 3: The EU Institutions and Modes of Governance

  1. Introduction
  2. The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe
    1. Dissolving of the Pillar Structure
    2. Reforming the Union´s Competencies
      1. A Clear-Cut Catalogue of Competences?
      2. Categories of Competences
    3. Reforming the Procedures and Instruments
      1. Revision Procedures
      2. Legislative Procedures
      3. Budgetary Procedure
  3. A Revised Institutional Architecture
    1. The European Parliament
      1. Increase in Competence and Function
      2. With New Strength Towards a Bicameral System
      3. A Full-Fledged Parliament?
    2. The European Council
      1. An Expanded List of Tasks
      2. The President of the European Council
    3. The Council of Ministers
      1. Composition of the Council and its Presidency
      2. The New Majority Formula
      3. An Enhanced Ability?
    4. The Union Minister for Foreign Affairs
    5. The European Commission
      1. Reforms in the Light of European 'Leitideen'
      2. An Enhanced President of the Commission
      3. The College
  4. Perspectives
    1. Towards a New Institutional Balance?
    2. In a Fusion Trend?
    3. The TCE as a Further Step in the Evolution of European States?
  5. Further Readings

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III. A Revised Institutional Architecture

In the context of estimations concerning the degree of the EU´s procedural differentiation, the present discussion faces the central task of examining the rules of the written constitution for their possible consequences on the living practice of an enlarged Union. The articles concerning the institutional architecture [Graphic] are to be reviewed in the light of their likely impact. A number of significant provisions contained in the Constitutional Treaty are either formulated anew or added to, without at the same time rendering the overall institutional configuration more comprehensible.

The specifics regulating the Union 's organs should be scrutinised in the order in which they appear in the Constitutional Treaty (Art. I-19 (1) TCE). In doing so, the incentives and constraints as well as the opportunities and limitations facing the political actors within the future institutional architecture ought to be noted. From such a comprehensive perspective, further discussion will then focus on the impact, this new set of rules will have on the ability of the Union to act.

As had been previously expected the configuration of the EU´s institutional architecture was intensely debated by the Convention. Hardened positions of supranationalists and intergovernmentalists as well as of small and big countries, each of them having its own vision of power distribution within and symbolic construction of the European Union, opposed each other along two eminent lines of conflict.

Nevertheless the Convention managed to find compromises on institutional and procedural formulations, which were adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in good number - for instance on the distribution of competences (Art I-11 ff. TCE), on the "Union Minister for Foreign Affairs" (Art. I-28 TCE) and regarding the "ordinary legislative procedure" (Art. III-396 TCE) [Graphic]. Thus, analyses and commentaries on these chapters of the Convention´s draft continue to be of interest. Some provisions, however, were only added ad hoc in the search for compromise before and during the final summit.

 

 

 

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