Курсовая работа: The UK as a member of the EU

· Budgetary deficits to be regulated once the single currency introduced.

· Coordination of employment strategy between member states.

· Social Chapter to be incorporated into the Treaty following UKs signing up to the Social Chapter in 1997.

· High ranking civil servants to coordinate common foreign and security policy.

· More powers for the European Parliament.

The UK could not agree on the following:

· No progress on reforming the EU institutions.

1.5.2 The Treaty of Nice

The Treaty of Nice was signed in 2001 and entered into force in 2003. It introduced changes to the EU institutional machinery in preparation for enlargement. From 1 January 2005, the number of votes allocated to each Member State in the European Council changes to take account of prospective new members. The total rises from the 87 votes held by the 15 Member States until June 2004 to up to 345 votes held by a potential 27 Member States. France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom will each have 29 votes. Assuming 27 Member States, the total required for a qualified majority will increase from 62 to 255, and for a blocking minority from 26 to 91. From 2005, the European Commission will comprise one member from each country, although when the EU reaches 27 members, the number of commissioners will be capped at a figure less than the total number of Member States. However, provisions in the Constitutional Treaty, if adopted, will supersede some of the Treaty of Nice provisions.

1.5.3 Treaty of Accession

The Treaty of Accession, signed by 25 heads of state in Athens in April 2003, provided for the accession to the EU of ten members on 1 May 2004. Under the Treaty, nationals of the ten new Member States have the right to move freely within the EU from that date for all purposes except for work. The Treaty allows for the imposition of transitional work restrictions on nationals of the new Member States, except Cyprus and Malta, until 30 April 2011. United Kingdom has waived its right to impose these transitional work restrictions, subject to certain safeguards.

In June 2003, the Convention’s findings were presented in the form of a draft Constitutional Treaty at the Thessaloniki European Council. 29 October 2004 the 25 EU countries sign a Treaty establishing a European Constitution.

1.5.4 under the Constitutional Treaty:

Member States will confer competences on the EU;

· national parliaments will have a role in monitoring and enforcing subsidiarity;

· a full-time president of the European Council will work alongside the existing presidents of the European Commission and the European Parliament;

· an EU foreign minister will bring together the roles of external relations commissioner and council high representative;

· a legally binding charter of rights will be introduced;

· the EU will become a single legal ‘personality’ (until the Treaty is ratified by all Members the EC and the EU have separate legal personalities);

· there will be greater co-operation on social security, justice and home affairs;

· A simpler voting system will be introduced where decisions would pass if supported by at least 55 per cent of Member States, representing at least 65 per cent of the EU.

When citizens in both France and the Netherlands voted 'No' to the Constitution in referendums in 2005, EU leaders declared a "period of reflection".

13 December 2007 the 27 EU countries sign the Treaty of Lisbon, which amends the previous Treaties. It is designed to make the EU more democratic, efficient and transparent, and thereby able to tackle global challenges such as climate change, security and sustainable development. Before the Treaty can come into force, it has to be ratified by each of the 27 Member States. [5]

Chapter 2. European economic integration

2.1 European Community Budget

2.1.1 The budget as a source of problems among the EU partners

The general budget of the European Community is an account of revenues from specific resources and expenditures for specific purposes, required by law to be in expostbalance. It remains insignificant in size (about 1 per cent of the EU GDP, while members' budgets average up to 40 per cent of their GDP). The narrowness of its structure affects both the contributions to it and the payments from it, 'the budgetary incidence', which is different for each member state. Therefore, unintentionally the budget functions as an instrument of inter-country redistribution, which in the 1970s propelled the Community into an acrimonious crisis that threatened to undermine the very process of European integration. The cause of this crisis was the members' net contribution to the EU budget, the difference between what they paid in and what they received from the budget. Germany and, after its accession to the EU, the UK were the only two member states that paid more into the budget than they got out of it. However, while at this time Germany's relative prosperity (measured by real GDP per head) was well above the EU average, the UK's was below the EU average. This problem was caused by two aspects of the budgetary process originating in the revenue and the expenditure sides of the EU budget. [11, p.52]

2.1.2 Budgetary revenues and expenditures

At the beginning of the 1980s, when the crisis reached its peak, the EU budget was financed by its 'own resources' which were made up of: