Treaty of Lisbon
The Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community was signed in the Portuguese capital on 13 December 2007 by the representatives of the twenty-seven Member States. It entered into force on 1 December 2009, after being ratified by all the Member States.
The Treaty on European Union includes a provision allowing for revision of the Treaties: under Article 48, any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the Council proposals for the amendment of the Treaties. The Council forwards any such proposals to the European Council, and the national Parliaments are notified. If the European Council agrees to examine the proposed amendments, its President convenes a Convention composed of representatives of the national Parliaments, the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, the European Parliament and the Commission. The Convention examines the proposals for amendment and adopts by consensus a recommendation to an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), which is convened by the President of the Council. Alternatively, and subject to the consent of the European Parliament, the European Council may also decide by a simple majority not to convene a Convention should this not be justified by the extent of the proposed amendments, in which case it is the European Council itself that defines the terms of reference of an IGC, which is then convened by the President of the Council. In all cases, an IGC composed of all the Member States is convened (whether preceded by a Convention or not) and any amendment to the Treaties must be ratified by all the Member States in accordance with their own constitutional requirements.
The Lisbon Treaty is the latest of the Treaties which, to date, have amended the Treaties on the basis of which the Communities and the European Union were founded, such as the Single European Act (1986), the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty) (1992), the Amsterdam Treaty (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001).
The Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community were consolidated when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force. The latest consolidated versions published in the Official Journal of the European Union can be found in OJ C 326 and C 237 of 26 October 2012.
The Treaties have been consolidated further since the publication of OJ C 326 and C 327 of 26 October 2012 to incorporate the most recent changes, though these versions have not been published in the Official Journal. These consolidated versions can be found on our website, so that the most up-to-date versions of the consolidated Treaties are available to the public.
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Information Note
This document contains a brief summary of the main changes.
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