Three pillars of the European Union

The three pillars of the European Union it was a common picture to describe the EU's political system, as introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. By the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, the EU has been redesigned so that the three-pillar model is no longer suitable for their description.

After the Treaty of Maastricht, the European Union (EU ) had no legal personality. She was only a kind of umbrella organization that provided the institutional framework for three areas, the so-called three pillars. These were the European Communities ( ECSC, EC, Euratom), the Common Foreign and Security Policy ( CFSP) and cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs ( ZJI ). The first pillar, the communities had existed before 1992; Decisions in the policy areas concerned were usually taken at supranational level by majority voting in the Council of the European Union and with the participation of the European Parliament (so-called Community method ). The second and third pillars (CFSP and ZJI ), however, which were introduced by the Maastricht Treaty were, an intergovernmental organization. Here was the principle of unanimity in the Council, the European Parliament had no participation rights, the ECJ had only very limited competence for the 2nd and 3rd column (Article 46 lit d ), e) EU [ Nice ] ). In the area of ​​ZJI the EU had initially no legislative powers. All decisions in this area of ​​policy needed to be ratified as a separate international agreement of each of the Member States.

The Treaty of Amsterdam most areas of ZJI were transferred to the EC, so now here were the supranational decision-making process. Only the police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters ( PJCC ) remained in the third column. For them therefore continue was unanimity in the EU Council; However, the decisions taken there were now directly valid and no longer had to be ratified by the individual states.

With the Treaty of Lisbon finally a new single legal framework was created by the image of the "three pillars" lost its basis: the European Union was now no longer an umbrella organization, but was even legal personality (Art. 47 TEU). This allowed the EC disbanded and all its powers are transferred to the EU. At the same time ( 82-87 TFEU see Article ) were introduced in the same supra-national decision-making procedures for the PJCC, who had previously applied only to the EC. Only the CFSP also retained after the Treaty of Lisbon their particular decision-making process and thus formed a special area within the EU (Art. 21-46 of the EU Treaty: " General provisions on the Union 's external action and specific provisions on the common foreign and Security Policy "). The Euratom, until the Treaty of Lisbon as a part of the European Communities 'first pillar' was no longer specifically mentioned in the Treaty, but connected only by a protocol to the Treaty on the political system of the EU.

Graph

The following graphic illustrates the three-pillar model, as it was in force from the Treaty of Amsterdam.

European Community ( EC):

  • Agricultural policy
  • Customs Union and the Single Market
  • Competition policy, state aid
  • Structural policy
  • Trade policy
  • European Economic and Monetary Union
  • Citizenship
  • Education policy and culture
  • Research and Policy
  • Trans-European networks
  • Health service
  • Consumer Protection
  • Social policy
  • Immigration policy
  • Asylum policy
  • Protection of the EU's external borders

With the Treaty of Amsterdam to the EC, in front of the third pillar " Justice and Home Affairs ":

  • Judicial cooperation in civil matters
  • Accompanying measures for free movement of persons

EURATOM:

  • Cooperation in the field of nuclear energy

ECSC (until 2002 own organization, and after tasks were taken over by the EC ):

  • Mutual control of coal and steel

Foreign Policy:

  • Cooperation
  • Election observers
  • Peacekeeping
  • Human Rights
  • Democracy
  • Assistance to third States

Security Policy:

  • Common Security and Defence Policy ( CSDP)
  • Disarmament
  • EU intervention force
  • Economic aspects of arms
  • European security order
  • Drugs and arms trade
  • Human Trafficking
  • Terrorism
  • Offenses against children
  • Organized Crime
  • Bribery, corruption and fraud

Temporal classification

  • History of the European Union
European Coal and Steel Community Supranational union Intergovernmentalism Treaties of the European Union Right of asylum Election monitoring Merger Treaty
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