ABSTRACT
In the simplest historical terms, the second Treaty of Rome in 1957 created the European Economic Community (EEC), a name which was later reduced to ‘European Community’ by the Maastricht Treaty as the scope and character of the Treaties changed. The EU, on the other hand, was a much later creation of that Maastricht Treaty, the Treaty on European Union (TEU) 1992. There were significant differences between the two concepts and the differences had important consequences. This is why the TEU chose still, in creating the ‘three-pillar’ structure of the Union, to refer to one of those pillars as the ‘Community’ pillar. The original three Treaties creating what collectively became the EC, as well as having specific economic objectives, put in place also certain decision-making processes and in effect created a legal order to ensure the achievement of the objectives. This is why we may refer to it as ‘EC law’. The TEU introduced a broader framework, with the addition of more social and political objectives to add to those economic ones that had the force of law. Because all Member States could not agree completely on how these broadened objectives should be achieved, the TEU introduced the concept of close co-operation between Member States on these matters. These did not have the force of law in the same way that the substantive provisions of the EC Treaty did. In particular, the other two pillars, Pillar 2, based on common foreign policy and security, and Pillar 3, originally based on cooperation in justice and home affairs and later changed to police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, are based on co-operation and do not have the force of law. Besides these, the TEU also made the additions of Protocols where certain Member States were allowed to opt out of development of specific policies. An example of this was the social policy based on the Social Chapter, to which the UK would not originally agree. It is useful, then, to have a basic idea of what came within the scope of the Community, and therefore could be enforced in the ECJ, and what was within the broader scope of the Union and could only be developed by co-operation of the Member States. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 below detail the different character of the Community and Union between the TEU and the Lisbon Treaty.
