Treaty revision procedures after Lisbon

The lisbon treaty is the result of a very long-drawn process of treaty revision that started with the laeken declaration of december 2001 and ended eight years later, with the entry into force of the lisbon treaty on 1 december 2009. The chapter examines how this political process was fitted within the legal straightjacket of the existing rules about treaty revision contained in article 48 eu treaty. The chapter then proceeds to discuss the revised ‘rules of change’ as contained in the lisbon treaty itself. Although these revised rules offer some more flexibility for the enactment of future treaty amendments, that flexibility is still very limited so that accomplishing treaty amendments will remain a structural problem in the european integration process. The chapter will therefore also examine the alternative modes of piecemeal institutional change, short of formal treaty amendment, that are available for the future.