Consolidated Treaty on European Union
This book is now out of print and the analyses and the columner tabulation of the comparison of the Treaty of Rome (1957), the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty have been incorporated into our book on 'The Treaty of Amsterdam in Perspective'.
The European Community is increasingly having more influence on the UK and the Maastricht Treaty was a significant stage in the process of developing the Community. It introduced the concept and structure of the Treaty on European Union and the criteria for the introduction of the Single Currency.
As a result, it is important to understand the implications and the extension of the influence of the EC granted under the Maastricht Treaty.
The Maastricht Treaty is not an entity in its own right, but a series of amendments and additions to previous European Treaties. In order to understand the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, it is essential to see how these amendments affect the earlier treaties (the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act).
The BMDF produced a consolidation of the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty which together form the Treaty on European Union.
'The Maastricht Treaty in Perspective: Consolidated Treaty on European Union' included all of the Maastricht additions, Protocols and Declarations. Where the original Treaties are modified, the unaltered text is shown in light type and the amendments and additions agreed at Maastricht are shown in bold.
The book contained:
An analysis of the increased powers, or 'competencies', of the institutions of the Community as a result of the Maastricht Treaty;
A 3-columnar comparison of the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty, to show how the powers and 'competencies' of the European Community have developed and changed with each new treaty. One of the benefits of this is that it shows how the amendments of the Maastricht Treaty alter the earlier treaties;
Protocols from the Treaty of Rome which are still relevant and referred to in the text of the Treaty;
Parts of the Single European Act which are still relevant and which are not incorporated into the main body of the Treaty;
The Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities (including a protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities);
The Council decision of 7 May 1985 on the Communities' system of own resources; this includes the calculation of the rebate of 1,000 million ECU granted to Great Britain.
'The Maastricht Treaty in Perspective'
The Sunday Telegraph; Sunday 24 May 1992
‘Sheep to the Slaughter’
Christopher Booker
"I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised that on Thursday night 336 members of the House of Commons voted in support of a document which very few of them had actually read. After all, Mr Hurd [the Foreign Secretary] admits that when he signed the Maastricht Treaty on 7 February, he himself hadn’t read it either – certainly not all of it.
"But does it not say something about the increasingly Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this great European Union we are all so keen to be part of that, by agreement between the member governments, the people of Europe are not officially to be allowed to read a full version of the Treaty until after all the governments have ratified it?
"All our own Government has done, very belatedly, is to publish a hotch-potch of the amendments agreed at Maastricht, so that it is almost impossible to make sense of how the amendments relate to the documents – the Rome Treaty and the Single European Act – they are amending.
"Recently my friend Brigadier Cowgill, who runs the British Management Data Foundation, representing 25 leading companies, from ICI to British Aerospace, thought it was high time his members were able to see this document which will have such profound implications for their business operations. He therefore put together from various sources a complete version of the two treaties, showing the Maastricht amendments in context.
"Copies of Cowgill’s compleat Maastricht [correctly ‘The Maastricht Treaty in Perspective – Consolidated Treaty on European Union’] have not only been eagerly welcomed by the Lords and Commons libraries; they are now even being sold by the Stationery office (although a cheaper version is available from the Centre for Policy Studies, available only to CPS members).
"Is it not extraordinary that the only way our legislators can read the Maastricht Treaty is through a piece of private enterprise like this? To return to where I started, is it not even more extraordinary that most of them are quite happy to vote enthusiastically for it without bothering to read it all? Or is that loud noise from the Palace of Westminster simply the sound of baa-ing?"
* * * * *
Sunday Telegraph; 31 May 1992
Christopher Booker
"Last week, I remarked on the extraordinary determination of the Government not to allow the publication of a full text of the Treaty signed at Maastricht until after it had been ratified.
"I then found myself reading about the signing of another great constitutional landmark in our island story, the Magna Carta. What struck me was the fact that, no sooner was the ink dry on the Great Chart at Runnymede, then “hundreds of clerks” were brought in to engross copies of it, for distribution, as soon as possible to every town in the kingdom.
"The moral of the tale seems to be that when you want to add to peoples’ liberties, you take care to let them know about it as soon as possible. When you want to take them away, you do everything you can to keep it quiet. Or, as Mr Tristan Garel-Jones of eth Foreign Office put it to the Commons, you say it would be “presumptuous” of the Government to publish the Treaty “before it had been approved by the House”. There are still those who think it might have been more in keeping with Mr Waldegrave’s [a minister of the Conservative government] exciting new drive for open government to let the House read the Treaty before voting on it, rather than the other way around.
"Incidentally, thanks to a typographical confusion, the private enterprise version of the Treaty I referred to last week was described as Cowgill’s Compleat Maastricht. This was just a very small joke – but apparently not a few people have been trying to order it under this title from HMSO and the Centre for Policy Studies. It is in fact called The Consolidated Treaty on European Union, published by the British Management Data Foundation."
Edward Mortimer, Financial Times - 8 July 1992
"I really do find the Treaty unreadable and incomprehensible though I am grateful to the British Management Data Foundation for supplying a relatively comprehensible edition of it, giving a consolidated text of the Treaty of Rome as Maastricht proposes to amend it."
Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph - 12 July 1992
'At last : The truth about the Maastricht Treaty.'
Extract from Hansard on the debate in the House of Lords 22 June 1993:
Lord Bruce of Donington moving an amendment to Part One of the Treaty said:
"[Part One] can be found on page 2 of the very excellent 'Maastricht Treaty in Perspective' document issued by the British Management Data Foundation. It facilitates easier examination of the effects [of the Treaty].
"I am sure that Members of the Committee will agree that we are somewhat indebted to the Foundation for doing something which...the Government ought to have done to enable the public better to understand what is involved. Indeed, it might even have assisted certain members of the Government who subsequently admitted that they had not read the Treaty."
This page was last updated on 10 December 2004
© Copyright Anthony Cowgill and Andrew Cowgill, 1999 - 2004