Between 1993 and 2009, the European Union (EU) legally comprised three pillars. This structure was introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993, and was eventually abandoned on 1 December 2009 upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, when the EU obtained a consolidated legal personality. The European Communities pillar handled economic, social and environmental policies. It comprised the European Community (EC), the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, until its expiry in 2002), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar took care of foreign policy and military matters. Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) brought together co-operation in the fight against crime. This pillar was originally named Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)
Overview
Within each pillar, a different balance was struck between the supranational and intergovernmental principles.
Supranationalism was strongest in the first pillar. Its function generally corresponded at first to the three European Communities (European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), European Economic Community (EEC) and Euratom) whose organisational structure had already been unified in 1965–67, through the Merger Treaty. Later, through the Treaty of Maastricht the word "Economic" was removed from the EEC, so it became simply the EC. Then with the Treaty of Amsterdam additional areas would be transferred from the third pillar to the first. In 2002, the ECSC (which had a lifetime of 50 years) ceased to exist because the treaty which established it, the Treaty of Paris, had expired.
In the CFSP and PJCCM pillars the powers of the European Parliament, the Commission and European Court of Justice with respect to the Council were significantly limited, without however being altogether eliminated. The balance struck in the first pillar was frequently referred to as the "community method", since it was that used by the European Community.
Pillar I: European Communities (Community integration method)
European Community (EC) Customs union and Single market Common Agricultural Policy Common Fisheries Policy EU competition law Economic and monetary union EU citizenship Education and Culture Trans-European Networks Consumer protection Healthcare Research (e.g. 7th Framework Programme) Environmental law Social policy Asylum policy Schengen treaty Immigration policy
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, until 2002) Coal and steel industry
European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) Nuclear power
Pillar II: Common Foreign and Security Policy (Intergovernmental cooperation method)
Foreign policy
Human rights
Democracy
Foreign aid
Security policy
Common Security and Defence Policy
EU battle groups
Helsinki Headline Goal Force Catalogue
Peacekeeping
Pillar III: Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (Intergovernmental cooperation method) Drug trafficking and weapons smuggling Terrorism Trafficking in human beings Organised Crime Bribery and fraud
History
1993: Origin
The pillar structure had its historical origins in the negotiations leading up to the Maastricht Treaty. It was desired to add powers to the Community in the areas of foreign policy, security and defence policy, asylum and immigration policy, criminal co-operation, and judicial co-operation.
However, some member-states opposed the addition of these powers to the Community on the grounds that they were too sensitive to national sovereignty for the community method to be used, and that these matters were better handled intergovernmentally. To the extent that at that time the Community dealt with these matters at all, they were being handled intergovernmentally, principally in European Political Cooperation (EPC).
As a result, these additional matters were not included in the European Community; but were tacked on externally to the European Community in the form of two additional 'pillars'. The first additional pillar (Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP) dealt with foreign policy, security and defence issues, while the second additional pillar (JHA, Justice and Home Affairs), dealt with the remainder.