Digital Signature Legality for Operational Budget in European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Operational Budget in European Union

Hey everyone. Noah Zerbe here. This is one of a series of short videos looking at the European Union. This video focuses on the treaties that created the Union. In other videos we consider the philosophical and theoretical foundations for union, its institutional arrangements, decision-making structures, and contemporary issues facing the EU. But if you're ready, let's get started. The first pan-European institution of importance was the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, or EEEC. Established in 1948, the OEEC's primary purpose was to provide for the coordination of European reconstruction under the UE led Marshall Plan. The organization itself was supported and pushed for by the United States, who saw it as an important avenue to expand intra-regional trade within Europe and to provide an economic bulwark against the expansion of communism into Western Europe. Under the OEEC, the first European Free Trade Area, or EFTA, was established in 1960. The OEEC eventually outlived its useful life, As the economies of Western Europe rebounded after the war. As a result, in 1961, the organization rebranded itself the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, and it expanded its focus to assist less developed economies around the world. the OECD still plays an important role in global economic policy today. The evolution of the European Union itself begins in April, 1951, with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, or ECSC. The ECSC was developed in ance with a plan outlined by Robert Schuman, the father of Europe. The ECSC was the first supranational organization, that is an international organization with the powers that subsume or overrode by treaty obligation those of the member states. In addition to France and West Germany, the ECSC also had his members the Benelux countries, Belgium the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, as well as Italy. The European Coal and Steel Community had two primary purposes, one economic and the other political. Economically, the ECSC established a free trade area for coal steel and other related sectors. But it was more than a simple free trade agreement. The ECSC also included provisions for the first European wide tax--a 1 percent levy on steel sales in Europe. It revitalized coal and steel production in Europe, reducing dependency on the United States and other steel exporters. And it facilitated improvements in the quality of life for coal miners, steel workers, and other industrial workers in the affected countries. Perhaps more importantly, though, the ECSC also had two key political objectives: the establishment of a framework for German-French reconciliation after the war. By tying coal and steel--two of the primary commodities needed for military construction and conflict into a single, European-wide governance structure-- the founders of the ECSC were making an important symbolic statement. It was also increasing the potential cost of war between the two countries, thus facilitating closer political ties. The ECSC officially ceased to exist in 2002, when the treaty that created it expired and its functions were absorbed into the European Union. However, the functionalist roots of the European Union, right down to the institutional structures of the EU itself, are found in the ECSC. Based on the success of the European Coal and Steel Community, the six member states continued to move towards further political and economic integration. In March, 1957, they signed the Treaties of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, or the EEC, and the European Atomic Energy Agency, known as Euratom. As with the Coal and Steel Community, they had both a political and economic purpose. Economically, the EEC moved towards the establishment of a common market and custom union among its member states. And politically, it continued to expand the progress towards political cooperation among member states. Despite its relatively small size and limited scope of focus, the EEC made strong progress towards the establishment of economic union, including integrating policy making in key areas and providing for macroeconomic coordination among member states. It also represented the first step towards the creation of the European common market, all of which are key features of the European Union today. In 1965, the European Economic Community was expanded through the Treaty of Brussels, also known as the Merger Treaty. As the name suggests, the Merger Treaty merged three separate institutions--the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Economic Community--under a single umbrella organization, the EEC, with the goal of streamlining the growing European bureaucracy--a recurring theme in European integration. The success of the European Economic Community eventually caused other European states to seek membership, and over time, the organization grew. In 1973, Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom joined. And in 1981, Greece joined. Later, in 1986, Spain and Portugal joined, bringing the total membership in the organization to 12. Also of note during this period was the negotiation of the Single Europe Act in 1981. The Single Europe Act was the first major revision of the Treaty of Rome, which had established the European Economic Community in 1957. It was intended to address the problem of eurosclerosis--the economic slowdown in Europe--by promoting further economic integration across Western Europe. In this sense, the Single Europe Act represented a massive step forward in the process of political and economic unification in Europe. The act itself expanded the powers of the European Economic Community, widening its areas of responsibility into research and development, foreign policy, and other areas. It also provided for the mutual recognition of product standards and certifications, weakening the idea of national sovereignty. At the same time, the act introduced new decision-making structures and processes, replacing the historical practice of consensus with a new qualified majority voting system that prevented a small number of states from blocking action. It did, however, retain the requirement for unanimity in some areas, including the admission of new members, common foreign and security policy, harmonization of social security and social protections, tax policy, and a handful of other areas. We'll cover the process of decision making in the European Union in a separate video. Finally, it also renewed interest in establishing the European Monetary Union and it's an important step towards the establishment of the euro. The 1990s and early 2000s represented the heyday of progress towards union. Membership in the union rapidly expanded in the 1990s to include most of Western Europe and, in the early 2000s, as former Soviet bloc states of Eastern Europe joined the union. In 1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined. In 2004, ten new states joined: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. And in 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined, bringing the total membership in the European Union to 27 states. During this same period, the role and powers of the European Union also expanded. In February of 1992, the Maastricht Treaty--or more formally, the Treaty on European Union--was concluded. The treaty formally established the European Union as we know it today the Maastricht Treaty officially created the European Union and established its three pillars, which divided the relative powers of the European Union and its member states. The first pillar was comprised largely of economic issues. Drawing on the work of the European Economic Community, which was renamed the European Community under the Maastricht Treaty, the first pillar encompassed all areas, ranging from customs union, agricultural policy, economic and monetary union, consumer protection, environmental law, and social policy, and others. Under the first pillar, community integration was the greatest and the power of the EU itself--and the idea of supernational governance--was strongest. The second pillar was the common foreign and security policy. This item included things like human rights, democracy, foreign aid, defense policy, and peacekeeping. Here, the emphasis was placed on the coordination-- under the umbrella of the European Union--of the actions of individual member states, recognizing that member states may also have their own policies which they wished to pursue. Thus while there was always an aspiration for a common foreign and security policy, this was not realized in any meaningful way and instead there was at best coordination of often divergent national policies. The third pillar was centered on interior policy and judicial cooperation, and included some issue areas like drug, human, and weapons trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime. As with the second pillar, policy making here was largely at the intergovernmental level, with member states cooperating through the institutions of European Union, in pursuit of specific policy aims. The Maastrict Treaty had two additional components central to the creation of the European Union. The most important of these was the provision for the establishment of the monetary union and the creation of the euro, the official currency of 19 of the 27 EU member states. Concluded in 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam amended the Maastricht Treaty in several important ways. The treaty required member states to transfer authority for several key areas to the European level. These included immigration policy, criminal and civil law, and foreign and security policy. The power of the European Parliament was also expanded. The idea of co-decision was strengthened and applied to broader array of issues. The Parliament gained the power to approve or reject the President of the European Commission, and several other important measures. The Treaty of Amsterdam emphasized the principle of subsidiarity, which represented an effort to reserve some powers to the member states. Put simply the principle of subsidiarity says that in areas where European Union does not have exclusive jurisdiction, decisions should be made at the lowest level--that is, at the level closest to the citizens of Europe. In this sense, it favors decision making at the national and even the regional or local level instead of at the European level. The Treaty of Nice was completed concluded in 2001. The treaty sought to set the stage for the integration of many of the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. Specifically, the Treaty of Nice sought to develop a compromise between Germany and France in reforming the weighted voting system that was used in the European Council. Under the old voting system, the largest states--that is, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy--had equal voting weights despite sharp differences in population between them. Germany desired a voting system that recognized its larger size. But that proposal was rejected by France, who viewed the political equality between Germany and France as a central pillar of the union. The treaty presented a compromise that retained an equal voting weight for each state, but introduced a second requirement that the weighted votes should include a sufficient portion of the population of the European Union. This came to be known as the double majority system. The treaty also expanded the powers of the European courts to deal with issues of law like patents. But critics of the treaty--and of the European Union more broadly--were skeptical of the new treaty. They asserted that the structures were not sufficiently democratic, and that it undermined national sovereignty and concentrated power in the European bureaucracy. Critics of the treaty mobilized, and Irish voters actually refused to ratify the treaty in a national referendum. A second referendum less than a year later saw the treaty approved in Ireland. But deep concerns about the process of integration and the growing power of the union were noted. In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon fundamentally restructured the European Union in several ways. First, it elevated the status of the European Union, granting it the authority to participate in international negotiations as an independent actor, separate from the participation of its member states. Second, it did away with the pillar system of dividing authority under the Maastricht Treaty and replaced it with a system of competencies. It specified the areas in which the European Union had exclusive competence to make directives and to conclude the international agreements that would be binding on member states. These included customs union, competition rules, governing the internal EU market, and monetary policy for the euro. It also specified areas of shared competence, where member states either (a) could not exercise competence in areas where the EU has already done, for example in the environment, social policy, agricultural and fisheries, or human rights; or (b) in areas in which theEU's exercise of competencies does not undermine the EU member states from exercising their own authority, for example, in areas of research and development, or technical and humanitarian aid; or (c) in areas in which the EU coordinates member policies, like common foreign and security policy. And finally, it outlined areas of supporting competence, in which the EU can carry out actions but only in support of member state activities. But obviously in these areas the role of the member state is primary. These include areas like education, protection of human health, civil protections, tourism, and others. The treaty also expanded the powers of the European Parliament, including granting it the power to manage the EU's budget. And finally, the Lisbon Treaty elevated the Charter of Fundamental Rights into treaty status, effectively integrating it into the national laws of all EU member states. Since the early 2010s, progress towards integration has stalled, particularly as far-right and eurosceptic parties have garnered increasing representation in the European Parliament. In July 2013, Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union. While there are still several states in the various stages of joining--called candidate members--none have received final approval for their membership in the union. Currently, there are six candidate members: Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey. Bosnia and Kosovo has all have also expressed an interest in joining but have not yet fulfilled the requirements to do so. And just what are those requirements? Put simply, candidate members must comply with all EU standards and rules. They must have the consent of the EU institutions and member states to join. And their membership must be approved by the citizens, either through approval by the national parliament or by popular referendum. To be eligible for membership, countries must meet the so-called Copenhagen Criteria outlined by the European Council in 1993. There are three specific criteria here. First, stable institutions guaranteeing democracy the rule of law protection of human rights and respect for and protection of minority groups in the country. Second, they must have a fully functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces in the European Union. And finally, they must have the ability to take on and effectively implement the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political economic and monetary union. And finally, in January of 2020, the United Kingdom completed negotiations to leave the European Union, and make it the first country to withdraw from the union since it was established in 1957. The reduction of the membership in the European Union thus went from 28 to 27. And so the various visions of the future of Europe integrated under the European Union began to take hold through a series of successive treaties. Rooted in liberal and rational relations theory, the European Union sought to develop closer economic political and cultural ties across the continent as a counter to the impulse for war. But we explore those institutional arrangements in other videos. That's it for now. Leave any questions you have in the comments section below, and thanks for watching. Bye!