A Policy of Bits and Pieces? The Common Commercial Policy After Nice

In: The Cambridge yearbook of European legal studies: CYELS, Band 4, S. 61-91

Abstract

It is of course by no means certain that the Treaty of Nice will be ratified and that we will face the most radical revision to the EC Treaty provisions on the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) since its inception in 1957. Unlike most other proposed changes, however, this revision was foreshadowed in substance if not in detail by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which by adding a new paragraph 5 to the existing Article 133, allowed for the possibility of the extension of the CCP by Council decision. This aspect of the Treaty of Nice is particularly worth discussing, even in the absence of certainty as to its coming into force, both because some alterations to the CCP would be possible even under the existing regime, and because the issues raised by the Nice amendment are extremely pertinent to any such development. Discussion of the implications of the choices made at Nice are instructive when considering not only the post-Nice CCP but alternative options in the event of other Treaty amendments. The complexity of the Nice amendment is a reminder of just how difficult it is to achieve consensus in this area, and also of how important in practice that consensus is.