The Schengen Agreement Explained

The Schengen Agreement is the treaty which created the Schengen Area in Europe. The Schengen Area is an area in Europe which includes the territory of 25 different nations. The Schengen Agreement specifically made the Schengen Area a region in which citizens could easily travel between member states.

The Schengen Agreement thus eliminates the need for border controls for travel between the borders of the member states of the Schengen Area. The separate states still remain independent governmentally and functionally, but in terms of travel, the Schengen Agreement united the area effectively into a single entity wherein travel is easy, akin to how travel is easy between the different states of the United States of America.

The Schengen Agreement was originally signed in the town of Schengen in Luxembourg, which is how the Schengen Agreement received its name. The Schengen Agreement has been expanded from the original signatories of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany, and France.

Now, the Schengen Agreement includes every member state of the European Union except for the United Kingdom and Ireland. Norway and Iceland also signed onto the Schengen Agreement, even though they are not part of the European Union.

Because it is now adopted as part of the legislature of the European Union, the Schengen Agreement is now treated as legislation instead of an international treaty, which means that it is amended according to the internal legislation systems of the European Union. The Schengen Agreement thus is primarily significant for the European Union states.

Discover Facts You Didn’t Know About the Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty was an
attempt to refine the European Union Government by amending the treaties at the
core of the European Union. The two treaties which the Treaty of Lisbon was
intended to amend include the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty
establishing the European Community. These are also known as the Treaty of
Maastricht and the Treaty of Rome, respectively.

The Treaty of Lisbon was signed
in December 2007 and was put into effect in December 2009. The Lisbon Treaty
amends the existing legislative body of the European Union such that
legislation passed by the European Parliament must be passed through a double
majority.

A double majority means that the European Parliament must be in favor
of the legislation in a majority of two different criteria. The first criteria
refers to the overall population of the European Union, while the second
criteria refers to a majority of the nations within the European Union.

The Lisbon Treaty was also
significant for creating the position of a President of the European Council,
the position of a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy, and the legal enforcement of the Charter of Fundamental
Rights, which is the Bill of Rights for the European Union.

The Treaty of
Lisbon was ratified by all member states of the European Union, as it had to be
for it to be adopted as an amendment treaty for the main treaties of the European
Union.

Treaty of Nice Explained

The Treaty of Nice is an EU
treaty which was signed in Nice, France, and thus how the Treaty of Nice
received its name. The Treaty of Nice is an important EU treaty, as it amended
the original Treaty on European Union and the Treaty of Rome so as to allow for
the European Union to expand westward into the other parts of Europe. The
Treaty of Nice did so by allowing for the European Parliament, which is the
primary legislative body of the European Union, to be expanded to 732 total
seats. This was a revision of a prior EU treaty, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which
had been a similar attempt to provide for westward expansion of the EU.

The Treaty of Nice also had
several other important provisions which changed and altered the European
Union. For example, the Treaty of Nice established a new set of courts within
the judicial system of the European Union as a whole. The courts established by
this EU treaty would thus stand below the European Court of Justice and the
Court of First Insurance, which were two of the highest courts in the EU and
would be specifically focused on special areas of law.

The Treaty of Nice was signed
in February 2001, and despite being successful and important in a number of its
intended purposes, it was ultimately unsuccessful in one: reducing the
complexity of the European Union’s institutions. As such, the European Union
established the European Convention in 2004 to remedy this situation.

European Union Treaty