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While in the previous study we presented the premises of the emergence of what is the economic and monetary Union today, and we demonstrated that in this process the European Council had a fundamental role to play even before it was enshrined in primary Community law, whose manifestation of will takes the form of public international law acts, in the present study we will address the economic and monetary Union after its consecration in the Maastricht Treaty. Normally, this approach should lead us to analyze the institutional structure of EMU in accordance with the Treaties on which the European Union is founded, but, apparently paradoxically, careful analysis shows that even after the said consecration, the mixed use of instruments of international law to fill possible gaps in union law has not been completely abandoned.

The Lisbon Treaty has introduced a new generic title – “legal acts” referring to the secondary European Union Law acts (art. 288-289 TFEU), compulsory or not, but also to the new delegated acts and implementing acts. These new acts could be adopted by the European Commission which generally has the legislative initiative power and, in special cases, by the Council, in accordance with the art. 290 TFEU and art. 291 TFEU. It is obvious that new competences are allowed to the European Commission which is in charge with the application and protection of the European Union law on the basis of the art. 17 TEU; the power of the Commission to adopt compulsory acts, even that they are not legislative, could be used in order to increase the enforcement procedures against the Member States which do not respect the European Union law. This new category of legal acts are adopted on the basis of the specific procedure and they could be entitled such as the "classic" secondary EU law acts, namely regulations or directives. In conclusion, this new category of acts could represent an appropriate instrument used by the Commission ensuring the unitary application of the EU law and its respect by the Member States.

Space widening European Community by joining several new states, reveals serious problems related to legal identity, social identity, sovereignty. The aim of this article is to explore some of the new principles created by the European law system, to show the necesity of creating an unique concrete system of law, in European community, with general principles. Even if, all the states in their accession process, knows about their required concessions, we can observe the difficulty of a new member in adapting the European principles established by treaties.

This paper analyzes the Court of Justice of the European Union after the Lisbon treaty and the changes that will be performed in order to increase the role of the Court in EU. We will discuss the Lisbon reform and the legacy of the European Constitution and the changes to the organization of the judiciary in the Union and to the appointment of its members. An important part of the paper will be dedicated to the procedure for future amendments of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the creation of Specialized Courts. The conclusion of the paper will treat the future of the judicial structure of the Union and the challenges of the greater complexity of the decision-making process and of the binding nature of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. A new phase of judicial activism has begun in the European Court of Justice, a phase focused on the protection of fundamental rights. The European Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the Lisbon Treaty has strengthened the position of the Court of Justice.

The paper aims to capture - from a politico-institutional and legal point of view - the current challenges that the European project is facing with in the field of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) / Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In this context, it has been assessed the consistency and credibility of the EU profile in the crisis management both in its Southern and Eastern neighbourhoods as well as the perspectives of EU - NATO Strategic Partnership and cooperation. Moreover, the paper critically examines the legal mechanisms and procedures in force in the field of CFSP / CSDP, putting forward, at the same time, some concrete suggestions and proposals for possible improvements.

This paper analyses the institutional changes to European Union diplomacy constituted by the Lisbon Treaty and the creation of the European External Action Service. These changes were meant to solve serious problems of horizontal and vertical incoherence in EU diplomacy that were caused by the network organization of EU diplomacy and the divide between supranational and intergovernmental policy areas. The approach is based on three separate analytical dimensions. The first focuses on the reorganisation of the decision-making and policy-planning structures in Brussels, where particularly the new double-hatted post of High Representative and Vice-president of the Commission represents a watershed in EU internal coordination. Secondly, the constitution of the network of EU actors that act internationally is analysed, with special attention given to the now even more central role of the EU Delegations to third states, around which EU diplomatic representation has been streamlined. The picture is more muddied with respect to the EU’s participation in international organisations, with the main obstacles to a more coherent EU diplomacy remains: The clash between the EU’s non-state nature and the internal law of international organizations. Thirdly, it is argued that the recent institutional changes are indicative of a strategic shift in EU diplomacy, away from traditional transformative objectives of a structural nature and towards the consolidation of a more traditional Westphalian paradigm of the defence of interests in competition with other actors.

The article is set to establish the elements that determined the European legislator, within the Lisbon Treaty, to conclude that for certain regulatory domains a specific type of legislative act is to be used (regulation, directive or decision), as well as to define the juridical dissimilarities between the 3 types of secondary legal acts.

The communication aims to emphasize the context in which the principle of subsidiarity was adopted, clarifying the dilemma about its purpose: is it a legal instrument to protect national sovereignty of the European Union’s Member States or is it a legal instrument which accelerates their federal integration. The document also approaches the problem of the Romanian Parliament in adapting procedures to the Lisbon Treaty, Protocol no. 2 on applying principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. In the described context it shall be discussed the controversial subject regarding the sovereignty transfer whenever the national parliament performs a subsidiarity check on, an EU draft legislative act.

The Lisbon Treaty marked many important changes in European Union’s institutional make-up and policymaking. One particularly important field of inquiry, especially in light of the current financial crisis, is European policy-making regarding social exclusion in general and women’s social exclusion in particular. First, through my paper I aim to answer three interconnected questions: 1) Has the Lisbon Treaty influenced policy-making regarding social exclusion, in the context of the current financial crisis? 2) What were the specific changes ensued? 3) IF/How is the European trend translated in Romanian national policies concerning women’s social exclusion? Second I aim to sketch several recommendations for addressing women’s social exclusion in light of the Lisbon Treaty. Since social exclusion is a vast domain I will limit myself in discussing primarily issues connected to women’s participation in the labour market, as well as participation in decision-making. In this sense I will use policy documents, available data and academic papers concerning the changes bought on by the Lisbon treaty, the main theoretical contributions in the field of women’s social exclusion and recent data obtained through a series of conferences on the Lisbon Treaty and Romania’s Role in the Process of Deepening European Integration 2010. The conferences, where I was a key speaker for one of the panels, were developed by the Romanian Government- the Department for European Affairs, The National School of Political and Administative Studies and the Academic Club of European Studies and provided an opportunity for conducting a small pilot-research providing data on the response of various social groups to the changes brought on by the Lisbon Treaty. Both the theme and the analysis of the paper are relevant and current, focusing on the interplay between the EU and Romanian policies after the Lisbon Treaty in the context of the present financial crisis.