Consequences of the Lisbon Treaty for traffic enforcement

Item Added 23 October 2009

Once the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by all member states, governments will lose their exclusive right to initiate and decide justice and home affairs legislation.

For the first time the European Commission will have a role in initiating cross-border enforcement policy in this area, as justice and home affairs falls into line with other business-as-usual policy areas such as trade, agriculture and transport.

Under the normal EU law-making process which will apply, the Council and European Parliament will have to agree together on new justice and home affairs laws. This means that Parliament will become a full partner in the decision making process and qualified majority voting will apply in the Council.

Twenty-six EU member states have now signed the treaty. Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus is the only signatory outstanding; he is likely to sign by the end of the year. This follows the Irish referendum vote on 2 October and Polish President Lech Kaczynsk signing the treaty on 10 October.

Implications for cross border enforcement

Once the treaty is ratified, the Commission will be able to revisit the directive on cross-border enforcement, which was blocked in the autumn 2008 by the Transport Council – made up of transport ministers from each member state.

Then the Council argued the issue was a justice and home affairs topic that came under the third pillar system - which gives governments exclusive competence to initiate and decide laws. Additionally their decisions must be unanimous.

“Lisbon opens up the possibility of the Commission now having scope to act and the parliament will have the opportunity to do more than just give an opinion,” explained SPARKS Network manager Bill Blakemore.

The treaty will give the European Commission choices in regard to the legal basis for any new proposal for a cross-border directive including using existing treaty articles dealing with transport or with new treaty articles concerned with police and criminal matters.

Implications for the UK

However, police forces and local authorities in the UK may face an additional hurdle because their government specifically negotiated the right to opt in or opt out of police and criminal justice initiatives before signing the Lisbon Treaty.

If a new cross-border enforcement directive proposal has a police and criminal justice legal base a future UK government could decide to opt out. UK traffic enforcement agencies would then not be able to use the cross-border directive to obtain vehicle owner data and enforce financial penalties in other member states.

“At this stage we don’t know what attitude the UK government will take to this initiative, especially as we will have had an election and may have had a change of government by the time the directive completes its legislative process,” said Bill Blakemore. “If a future UK government chooses to opt out, the directive could go ahead without us.”

Czech President stalls signing Lisbon Treaty
Poland ratifieds EU treaty