抄録
This paper examines provisions regarding enhanced cooperation in the Treaty of the European Union and that of the European Community after Nice.
The Treaty of Amsterdam introduced institutional enhanced cooperation into the above Treaties. Enhanced cooperation is a kind of flexible or differentiated integration. Some of the Member States can advance further through applying provisions on enhanced cooperation. But these provisions have not yet been applied. Therefore the Treaty of Nice, which has not yet been ratified by all the Member States, will modify these provisions, so that the Member States will be able to apply them more easily.
There are surely many good articles available about flexible or differentiated integration in the EU. However there are as yet few analyses from a legal perspective. In this paper I intend to clarify how new provisions on enhanced cooperation could thus be interpreted.
In the first section, this paper outlines the new provisions on enhanced cooperation in the Treaties in three parts. The focus is on differences between the old and new provisions under first, second and third pillar of the EU. The first part makes clear under what conditions some of the Member States can establish an enhanced cooperation. The second one explains what procedures the enhanced cooperation should follow. The third part explains how other Member States can participate at a later stage in the established enhanced cooperation.
In the second section, this paper deals with five potential problems when the enhanced cooperation is implemented. The first problem is how an enhanced cooperation will be implemented. The second one is what characteristics the acts and decisions necessary for the implementations of enhanced cooperation have. The third refers to what forms of those acts and decisions could take. Fourth, this paper considers the relationship between those on one hand and the EC acts on the other hand. Lastly this paper discusses the supremacy of those acts and decisions compared to the law of the concerned Member States.
In conclusion, using the results from the first and second sections, I would try to evaluate the new provisions on enhanced cooperation in the treaties from two points. Firstly, this paper considers, if the new provisions could evade any free enhanced cooperation outside the framework of the Treaties. Secondly, it discusses, whether a dilution of the EU could emerge.
