FRANCO MOSCONI 

Il trattato di Maastricht: una costituzione per l'Europa?

N. 163

Summary - After an introduction on the European Community legal order, the author focuses on its current evolution, as determined by the 1986 Single European Act and more recently, by the Maastricht Treaty’s provisions.

The relationship between the Community — or the Union — and Member States, as those amongst Community institutions themselves are shown. Significantly, it is pointed out as terms like "supranational" and "supranationality" used in the former Treaty wording (i.e. in the ECSC Treaty), have no longer been employed.

The European Union, as it is conceived by the Maastricht Treaty, aims to foster the economic and social progress of Member States, by enforcing citizens’ rights (European citizenship and social policy), promoting a closer integration as far as immigration policy, judicial cooperation and home affairs are concerned, and empowering the European Court of Justice with more effective legal means to prevent Member States from breaching of the Treaty. Since a group of Member States has been working for some time within the framework of international cooperation on some of the previous listed objectives, that raises even a problem of relationship between the Maastricht Treaty and the Schengen Agreement.

Finally, the author lays stress upon the new principle of subsidiarity and the division of powers between the Community and its Member States. If in the past Community could act in respect of the principle of the attribution of powers, that is to say within the limit of the transferred competence, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, now it is also to be proved that the objectives referred to in any specific action can be better attained at Community level than at the level of the individual Member States.