Single European Act

In the early 1980s, nearly thirty years after the Treaty of Rome, the common market was still incomplete. Customs duties had gone, but many other barriers to trade between member states remained. Decisions to remove them often required unanimity in the Council, so a single country could block them. In June 1985, the Milan European Council decided, by a vote of seven to three, to convene an intergovernmental conference to revise the treaties.

The result was the Single European Act, the first major revision of the Treaties of Rome. Nine member states signed it in Luxembourg on 17 February 1986; Denmark, Greece and Italy signed in The Hague on 28 February 1986, Denmark after a referendum in favour. It entered into force on 1 July 1987.

What it changed

• The single market. The Act set the objective of a fully operational internal market, without internal frontiers, by 1 January 1993.
• Voting in the Council. Qualified majority voting replaced unanimity for most single market measures and for several existing areas, such as the common customs tariff, the free movement of capital and services, and sea and air transport.
• The European Parliament. A new “cooperation procedure” gave the Parliament a real, if limited, role in adopting laws in around a dozen areas. Its assent became necessary for enlargements and association agreements.
• New competences. The Communities gained or formalised powers in social policy, economic and social cohesion, research and technology, and the environment.
• Foreign policy. European Political Cooperation, the intergovernmental coordination of foreign policy since 1970, was written into the treaties for the first time, as was the European Council.

Example

The Act launched what the EU’s official history calls a “vast 6-year programme” to remove the remaining barriers. The single market was launched on 1 January 1993, with its four freedoms: the free movement of people, goods, services and money. According to the same source, hundreds of laws were agreed from 1986 onwards, covering tax policy, business regulations and professional qualifications, although the free movement of some services was delayed. Majority voting in the Council made it possible to adopt many of these laws even when some governments disagreed.

Debates and limits

The revision was contested from the start. The decision to open negotiations was taken in Milan by seven votes to three, not by consensus. In Denmark, signature came only after a referendum in favour, and in Ireland a court challenge brought by a private citizen delayed entry into force until July 1987. The European Parliament had gone further: on 14 February 1984 it adopted, by a large majority, a draft treaty that would have given the Union a bicameral legislature, close to a federal system. Member states did not accept it, and the cooperation procedure gave the Parliament real but limited legislative powers.