The Treaty of Accession, the drafting of which was completed on Wednesday, sets out the details for the integration of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia as new EU Member States by June 2004.
The final text of the document is largely based on the accession negotiations between the EU and the accession candidates, which were concluded at the Copenhagen summit in December 2002. Only certain modifications having no budgetary impact were made.
Although still subject to the assent of the European Parliament, the Treaty of Accession is due to be signed on 16 April 2003 at the meeting of the European Council in Athens.
The Treaty of Nice, which came into force on 1 February 2003, has paved the way for the Enlargement and completed the institutional changes required for the accession of the new Member States by increasing the size and powers of both the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Under the Treaty of Nice, the new European Parliament, to be elected in June 2004, will increase from 626 to 732 member seats.
The Treaty of Nice includes new provisions for the European Commission, which are due to come into effect on September 2004. As of that date, the seats on the EU's executive body will be limited to one per Member State. This means that the five larger member States, namely the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, will no longer be entitled to appoint a second Commissioner.
When the number of Member States reaches 27, as will happen following the potential integration of Romania and Bulgaria by 2007, there will be fewer Commissioners than Member States.
As well as giving the President of the Commission increased powers, the Treaty establishes a new system of voting in the Council of Ministers. Specifically, the scope of qualified majority voting will be increased against unanimity, to facilitate European decision-making.
As an example, under the new rules the negotiation and conclusion of international agreements on services and commercial aspects of intellectual property, which presently require a unanimous vote, will only require the qualified majority of Member States' votes.
The Treaty of Nice further allows for a major reform of the EU's judicial system, to tackle the problem of case overload and to accelerate the delivery of judgements.
It is possible that the Treaty of Nice will soon be superseded by the new EU Constitutional Treaty, which is currently being drafted.
The Treaty of Nice is available at:
ue.eu.int/cigdocs/en/cig2000-EN.pdf
A summary of the Treaty can be found here