Lisbon Treaty is finally in force!

The jigsaw puzzle is finally complete and the Lisbon Treaty entered into force yesterday. Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union in the 1940s, could not have foreseen it better when he said that Europe would not be made all at once but that it would be built on a step-by-step approach. For the 10-year-long struggle to get the EU treaties in shape tested the endurance of even the most resilient pro-Europeans.

It can all be traced back to 1992 when the Maastricht Treaty was signed to create the European Union (hitherto, the EEC) and to establish the roadmap to the eurozone, which was established 10 years ago.

By any standard, the Maastricht Treaty was the most ambitious treaty seeking to drive European integration forward since the setting up of the original Community in 1951. But, suddenly, things started to go wrong.

The Maastricht Treaty was rejected in a referendum in Denmark in June 1992. It was then that deeper European integration first found itself out of synch with the popular mood. Regrettably, that communication gap has since widened because Europe has not been able to connect with its own citizens.

After securing a number of opt-outs, not least on staying out of the eurozone, the Danes held a second referendum and the treaty sailed through with a resounding majority.

Now in the Maastricht Treaty, EU leaders had inserted a seemingly innocent clause calling for a review of the treaties in order to make further steps towards an "ever closer union". The idea was to change the treaties in a way that would attribute more powers to the Union and change its decision-making structures to enable them to function better with more members.

The first opportunity to do so came along under the subsequent Dutch Presidency, which secured the signing of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. But this treaty turned out to be a far too feeble attempt and, bar a few light touches, it turned out to be a non-event.

With enlargement looming, EU leaders started panicking. How could Europe take decisions effectively with ground rules that were originally drawn up for six members now set to be stretched for around 30, they asked. The die was cast.

No enlargement had to take place unless the rules were reviewed. So another attempt was made leading to the signing of the Nice Treaty in December 2000. At that time we were bystanders, having just started accession negotiations, watching helplessly from the outside at how our country's representation would be affected by the decisions taken by others. The result was not good.

An unfair and unjustified distinction was created between Malta and Luxembourg, despite our equal population, which granted the latter better representation than us in the European Parliament and more votes than us in Council. To boot, the number of commissioners was set to be reduced once the number of EU members exceeded 27.

Malta immediately marked its intention to reverse this inequity at every available opportunity.

With popular disenchantment mounting even in the most glorified of members, the Nice Treaty was rejected in a referendum in Ireland. But, once again, a second referendum was held and the treaty was overwhelmingly carried.

With the Nice Treaty in place, enlargement could go ahead in 2004. But the appetite for reform did not go away. For in 50 years, the original treaties had been amended so many times that the entire consolidated text had become a veritable patchwork of legal jargon that was incomprehensible to the man and woman in the street. No wonder, the gap was widening.

So a new reform process was soon under way with the noble aim of rewriting the treaties to simplify them and make them intelligible. This time round the treaty-making exercise was opened up by involving representatives from governments, Parliaments and even non-governmental organisations to a popular convention under the presidency of, oh well, an overly ambitious Frenchman, Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

But what should have led to a simple, simplification exercise soon drifted off into a valiant, yet, far too grand attempt at giving Europe its own Constitution complete with its own flag, hymn and motto.

The Constitution was signed in October 2004. But with the big bang enlargement having just doubled the number of EU countries, the result was doomed to fail.

For it turned out to be much more than a mere simplification exercise and, instead, ended up as a far-reaching project that came well before its time. Indeed, the Constitution suffered a fatal blow at the hands of the electorates of two founding members: France and The Netherlands.

The political will was found to pick up the pieces from the shredded Constitution and put them in a looser text: the lacklustre Lisbon Treaty, signed on December 13, 2007, which created two new treaties: the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It is these two treaties that rose yesterday from the ashes of the failed European Constitution and that will guide us, EU citizens, for years to come.

Europe lives to fight yet another day.

• On Saturday morning I will address a public dialogue on How Can I Understand The Lisbon Treaty? Attendance is free but booking in advance on 2122 8585 is required because of limited seating capacity. The event will take place at Europe House, 254, St Paul Street, Valletta and starts at 10.30 a.m.

Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.

www.simonbusuttil.eu