The Lisbon Treaty - 9780521197922

This series aims to produce original works which contain a critical analysis of the state of the law in particular areas of European Law and Set out different perspectives and suggestions for its future development. It also aims to encourage a range of work on law, legal institutions and legal phenomena in Europe, including `law in context' approaches. The titles in the series will be of interest to academics; policymakers; policy formers who are interested in European legal, commercial and political affairs; practising lawyers including the judiciary; and advanced law students and researchers.

Given the controversies and difficulties which preceded the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, it is easy to forget that the Treaty is a complex legal document in need of detailed analysis for its impact to be fully understood. Jean-Claude Piris, the Director-General of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union (EU), provides such an analysis, looking at the historical and political contexts of the Treaty, its impact on the democratic framework of the EU and its provisions in relation to substantive law. Impartial legal analysis of the EU's functions, its powers and the treaties which govern it make this the seminal text on the most significant recent development in EU law.

Since 1988, Jean-Claude Piris has served as the Legal Counsel of the Council of the EU and Director-General of its Legal Service. He is an Honorary Counsellor of State of France, a former diplomat at the UN and the former Director of Legal Affairs of the OECD. He was the Legal Advisor of the Successive Intergovernmental conferences which negotiated and adopted the treaties of Maastricht in 1992, Amsterdam in 1997 and Nice in 2001, the constitutional Treaty signed in Rome in 2004 and, finally, the Lisbon Treaty in 2007.