Describe the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on the institutional structure of the European Union

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The Lisbon Treaty made numerous changes to the institutional frameworks of the

European Union. Unlike the failed Constitutional Treaty, which was abandoned in 2007

due to widespread criticism and opposition, the Lisbon Treaty didn’t replace the EC Treaty

and the TEU, but amended them. The EC Treaty was renamed as the ‘Treaty on the

Functioning of the European Union’, and all references to ‘Community’ were replaced

with ‘Union’. The amended TEU and TFEU now constitute the treaties on which the

European Union is founded and are the primary source of EU law. The new amended

article 4 of the TEU states that the institutional framework of the Union comprises of 7

institutions: The European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European

Commission, the Court of Justice of the EU, the European Central Bank and the Court of

Auditors. The same amendment also states that the Parliament, Council and Commission

are to be assisted by two new advisory bodies: the Economic and Social Committee and

the Committee of the Regions. However in comparison to the previous provision of the EC

treaty, the only significant change is that the European Council and the ECB are now

formal Union institutions, which means they are now formally bound by all the Treaties’

references to ‘the institutions’. It also means that the Court of Justice now have the

jurisdiction to review the legality of the European Councils legally binding acts, something

which previously wasn’t the case. However the respective roles of these institutions have

been largely left unchanged, and it is worth noting that the European Council acquired

clear treaty status in 1992 when the TEU referred to it as the body that ‘shall provide the

Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political

guidelines thereof’, so the elevation of status to the rank of a institution merely codified

previous practice. The Lisbon Treaty also provided for 2 new posts to be established: The

President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign

Affairs and Security Policy, and with the enforcement of the TL it was established that the

members of European Council would be heads of government of member states, as would

the president of council and of the commission. The Lisbon Treaty also conferred onto the

European Council new and controversial powers. It can now propose amendments to

certain parts of EU treaties by unanimous vote, where as previously such changes could