The Treaty of Nice and its critics

In February 2000, yet another IGC, the fourth since the entry into force of the SEA in 1987, inaugurated its workings with the explicit objective to arrive at a resolution on the so-called ‘Amsterdam leftovers’. That is to say, on those decisions that should have been decided upon during the June 1997 Amsterdam Summit, where a pronouncement had not proved possible. This was no easy task given the animosity of the deliberations during the Amsterdam process and the high stakes drawn in case of breakdown and, by extension, a likely collapse of the integration process: the next round of enlargement involving up to twelve new member states from Central and Eastern Europe, Malta and Cyprus. A special Protocol attached to the AMT on ‘the enlargement and the institutions of the Union’ stated thus: