The Treaty of Lisbon: EU leaders sign at Jerónimos, 13 December 2007

The leaders began arriving at half past ten. One by one they shook hands with José Sócrates, Portugal’s prime minister, whose government held the EU’s rotating presidency that half-year, and his foreign minister, Luís Amado. Then they went up to a waiting room at the Jerónimos Monastery, where they could enjoy the sun and a view of a very blue river. The area had been sealed off.1 source1 source

It was Thursday 13 December 2007, and the leaders of the member states had come to Lisbon to sign a treaty reforming how the EU worked. Britain's prime minister was not among them that morning. The ceremony had been scheduled for between noon and one o’clock. The Diário de Notícias reported that the whole spectacle lasted two hours and was staged above all for television.3 sources3 sources

The paper found its symbol in the monks’ old refectory, where a baroque painting of Saint Jerome hung. Legend says the saint pulled a thorn from a lion’s paw. By getting the treaty signed, the paper wrote, the Portuguese presidency had pulled a thorn from the EU’s side.1 source1 source

Three men spoke, for the three main institutions: Sócrates for the Council, José Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, for the European Commission, and Hans-Gert Pöttering for the European Parliament. The speeches were short. Pöttering, a German, called it the “Reform Treaty” and said “of Lisbon” only once. Barroso quoted Fernando Pessoa’s phrase “a sede de futuro”, the thirst for the future. Speakers recalled that Portugal had signed its own Treaty of Accession to the European Communities in the same monastery in 1985.2 sources2 sources

Then came the signatures, which the paper said took as long as the voting at the Eurovision Song Contest. Each country sent its plenipotentiaries to the table, usually the head of government and the foreign minister, starting with Belgium’s caretaker prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt. Some sent three: France was represented by President Nicolas Sarkozy, his prime minister, François Fillon, and his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. Last came the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, alone, with no prime minister to shake hands with.2 sources2 sources

Gordon Brown spent the morning in London answering questions from the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs. EUobserver had reported a week earlier that the session would clash with the ceremony. Downing Street denied he was avoiding it, and pointed out that in 2001 the foreign secretary, Robin Cook, had signed the Treaty of Nice. Asked about Brown’s absence as he left, Sarkozy said in English: “We need Gordon.”3 sources3 sources

Brown reached Lisbon too late even for the official lunch and signed the treaty later that day. Barroso later said the British prime minister arrived late on purpose, to avoid the ceremony and the group photo, and signed “very discreetly” with him and one or two other witnesses, without the press.3 sources3 sources

When it was over, the leaders boarded a modern tram to the official banquet given by the President of the Republic, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, at the Museu dos Coches. Outside the security perimeter a few protesters whistled. Mário Soares, prime minister when Portugal signed its accession treaty in 1985, told reporters the new treaty was “very confusing, too complex”, but a step forward. A referendum, he said, was not the issue; what mattered now was getting it approved.1 source1 source

The Lisbon treaty was a rescue. In 2004 the EU had signed a much grander text, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, drafted by a convention and signed in Rome on 29 October 2004. It was meant to replace all the existing founding treaties with a single document, and every member state had to ratify it.2 sources2 sources

Eleven countries had done so when France voted in a referendum on 29 May 2005. Of 28.3 million valid votes, 15.4 million were for “non”, 54.7 per cent, on a turnout of 69.4 per cent. Three days later, on 1 June, the Netherlands voted in an advisory referendum, its first national referendum: 61.5 per cent against, on a turnout of 63.3 per cent. The vote was not binding, but the Dutch government withdrew its bill to ratify.3 sources3 sources

Ratification stalled. Seven member states carried on with their procedures and seven others put theirs off indefinitely. CVCE, the University of Luxembourg’s European studies centre, describes an unprecedented crisis that lasted two years, in a Union that had just taken in twelve new members, most of them former communist states, in 2004 and 2007.2 sources2 sources

The German presidency of early 2007 broke the deadlock. At a European Council in Brussels in June 2007, the leaders agreed on 23 June to call an intergovernmental conference, the formal negotiation between governments that changes the treaties. Its mandate was a “Reform Treaty” that would amend the treaties in force. The constitutional idea, one text replacing all the others, was abandoned.2 sources2 sources

The mandate set a deadline: the conference was to finish before the end of 2007, leaving time to ratify before the European Parliament elections of June 2009. It was a bitter summit. Poland fought the new voting system, arguing that it gave too much power to Germany, the most populous member state.2 sources2 sources

Portugal took over the presidency in July, and the conference opened on 23 July. Most of the substance came from the 2004 text. What went were the symbols: every reference to a constitution, and any article on an EU flag, anthem or motto. The planned “Union Minister for Foreign Affairs” became a High Representative.4 sources4 sources

The leaders met informally in Lisbon on 18 and 19 October to settle the last disputes. Italy won one extra seat in the European Parliament. Poland won a guarantee that a mechanism letting small groups of states delay decisions could be removed only unanimously, and a permanent advocate general’s post at the EU Court of Justice for a Pole. After midnight they had a deal, and toasted it with champagne.2 sources2 sources

In Britain, the Conservatives and the Sun newspaper demanded a referendum, accusing Brown of breaking a promise to hold one on the constitution. Brown replied that the new treaty was less ambitious and needed no referendum, and that he had won safeguards limiting how it would apply to British justice and labour policy.1 source1 source

The treaty itself says it is to be known as the Treaty of Lisbon, after the city where it was signed. The day before the signing, in Strasbourg, an adapted version of the Charter of Fundamental Rights was proclaimed, so that the new treaty could refer to it. The Charter had first been proclaimed on 7 December 2000 but had no binding force.2 sources2 sources

The treaty runs to 271 pages of the EU’s Official Journal and is hard to read on its own, because it is a long list of amendments. It rewrote the Treaty on European Union and renamed the Treaty establishing the European Community as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The EU gained legal personality and replaced the old Communities, and the three “pillars” of the 1990s were merged.2 sources2 sources

The double-majority rule replaced a system in which each country had a fixed number of weighted votes: in the transitional table annexed to the treaty, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom had 29 each, Malta 3 and Portugal 12. Under the new rule a law needs the backing of enough states and of enough people, and fewer than four states can never block it, however large they are.2 sources2 sources

Poland and the United Kingdom obtained a protocol limiting how the Charter of Fundamental Rights could be applied to them in their own courts. National parliaments were given a greater say in EU decision-making, and the Court of Justice’s jurisdiction was extended to every EU policy area except common foreign and security policy.2 sources2 sources

That exit clause set out a procedure for the first time. A country that decides to leave notifies the European Council; the EU negotiates a withdrawal agreement; and if none is in force after two years the treaties simply stop applying, unless every government agrees to extend the deadline.2 sources2 sources

The treaty was to take effect on 1 January 2009 if all 27 countries had ratified by then. Most did it by a vote in parliament. On 9 January 2008 Sócrates announced that Portugal would do the same. The German MEP Jo Leinen, who chaired the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, welcomed the decision. Portugal was under no legal obligation to hold a referendum, he said, and one would have increased the pressure on countries such as the United Kingdom to hold one too.3 sources3 sources

The Assembleia da República approved the treaty on 23 April 2008. The Socialists, the Social Democrats and the CDS-PP voted for it; the Communists, the Left Bloc and the Greens voted against. Sócrates, who opened the debate, spoke of “great political and social consensus”. The Portugal Resident counted Portugal as the tenth EU country to ratify. President Cavaco Silva signed the decree of ratification on 9 May, and it was published on 19 May 2008.2 sources2 sources

Ireland’s constitution required a referendum. On 12 June 2008, 862,415 Irish voters said no and 752,451 yes: 53.4 per cent against, on a turnout of 53.1 per cent. By then the parliaments of 19 member states had approved the treaty, and the other governments decided that renegotiating it was out of the question.2 sources2 sources

Instead, the other leaders addressed what Irish voters had said worried them. In December 2008 and June 2009 they gave legal guarantees that the treaty would not affect Irish policy on taxation, the right to life, education and the family, or the country’s military neutrality. They also agreed that the Commission would keep one member from every country. Under the treaty it would otherwise have shrunk in 2014 to two-thirds of the number of member states.4 sources4 sources

On 2 October 2009 Ireland voted again. This time 1,214,268 voted yes and 594,606 no, 67.1 per cent in favour, on a turnout of 59 per cent.1 source1 source

There were other hurdles. On 30 June 2009 Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the German law approving the treaty was compatible with the Basic Law. But Germany could not deposit its ratification until a new law gave the Bundestag and Bundesrat more say in EU lawmaking. The last holdout was the Czech president, Václav Klaus, a long-standing critic of the treaty.2 sources2 sources

On 3 November 2009 the Czech Constitutional Court ruled the treaty compatible with the Czech constitution. Within hours Klaus signed, while repeating that the treaty infringed Czech sovereignty and calling the court’s ruling politically biased. His signature completed ratification in all 27 member states.2 sources2 sources

The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009, the first day of the month after the last instrument of ratification was deposited with the Italian government. The same day the Charter of Fundamental Rights became binding, with the same legal value as the treaties.3 sources3 sources

The new posts were filled at once. The European Council elected Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium’s prime minister, as its first full-time President, for a term from 1 December 2009 to 31 May 2012, and appointed Catherine Ashton High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from the same day.3 sources3 sources

Article 50 was first used by the United Kingdom. On 23 June 2016 British voters chose to leave the EU. On 29 March 2017 the prime minister, Theresa May, wrote to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to start the clock.1 source1 source

Under the two-year rule the UK was due to leave at 11pm on 29 March 2019. It asked for three extensions, each agreed unanimously by the other governments, and left on 31 January 2020. The Withdrawal Agreement negotiated under Article 50 entered into force on 1 February 2020.2 sources2 sources

The EU still runs on the two treaties as Lisbon amended them. When EU ministers vote by qualified majority, they count states and populations. When EU summits meet, an elected president chairs them, and since 1 December 2024 that president has been António Costa, Portugal’s prime minister from 2015 to 2024, elected for a term ending on 31 May 2027.4 sources4 sources

For Portugal the treaty is also a matter of name. The European Commission’s office in Lisbon lists its signing in the Portuguese capital among the milestones of the country’s membership, alongside the accession treaty of 1985, the euro in 1999 and Barroso’s election as Commission President in 2004. Portugal has held the Council presidency four times; the third, in 2007, is the one that produced the treaty.1 source1 source