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Lisbon Treaty is too little too late, say Durham University experts

(13 December 2007)

Durham University experts have criticised the treaty which has been signed today by EU leaders in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

The treaty’s reforms will establish a new European Council president and alter the way EU members govern themselves. Deputy Director of the Durham University European Law Institute, Dr Antonis Antoniadis suggested that the treaty is inadequate. He said: “For one thing, the Reform Treaty is spectacularly unspectacular. “While getting away with the absolute minimum necessary for the continuing operation of the EU, it manages to keep both the opponents and proponents of the now abandoned Constitutional Treaty moderately happy, but only just.” According to Dr Christian Schweiger of the School of Government and International Affairs, the reforms set out in the treaty are now inevitable and indeed are overdue. Dr Schweiger said: “The signing of the Lisbon Treaty is a late and overdue step towards ensuring that the EU of now 27 member states will continue to work efficiently. “Lisbon provides the institutional framework for an ongoing enlargement process which is aimed at gradually reuniting Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War. “The recent waves of enlargement towards Central and Eastern European countries therefore made the institutional reforms set out in the Lisbon treaty inevitable.”