Sweden: Lisbon Treaty ratification process

The Swedish government has embarked on the first leg of the process to ratify the EU Treaty of Lisbon. The government has published two tomes of about 400 pages each. The first one contains the legislative proposals and an extensive presentation of the amendments to the existing Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC), to be called the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The second tome contains seven appendixes: the final documents of the intergovernmental conference (IGC 2007).

Sweden did not ratify the Constitutional Treaty of 2004, but left it hanging. Thus, the present stage is a wide-ranging consultation exercise, with 214 government bodies and civil society actors being offered the possibility to express their views. The dead-line for contributions is 25 March 2008.

This clearly means that Sweden is not going to be among the first member states to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, although the government mentions the target date of 1 January 2009 in its press release.

The government of Sweden has clearly stated that the ratification procedure is going to be parliamentary.


Ralf Grahn


Source:

Regeringskansliet: Lissabonfördraget – Ds 2007:48; Press release, 20 December 2007 and downloadable pdf files; Part I with proposals and presentation, Part II with appendixes: 1. the Treaty of Lisbon, 2. Protocols and appendices, 3. the Final Act, 4. Articles with ordinary legislative procedure, 5. Articles with special legislative procedures, 6. Articles with unanimous decision making, 7. the Charter of Fundamental Rights (all in Swedish; I found no information in English);
http://www.regeringen.se