The European Union-How it Works-It's Treaties

Andrew Duff is asked a question regarding the number of treaties that make up the European Union. In his answer he provides some surprising insights into the European Union treaties.

 The transcript for this interview is typed below. In the mean time tune in to learn the details of the EU treaties and stay tuned in this playlist for more from Andrew Duff, the European Union's constitutional specialist.

Erika Grey
Europa lists seven treaties and one act that make up the European union, but you list many more in your book Pandora, Penelope and Polity, How to change the European Union. How many actual treaties make up the Union and how many acts? I just want to ask that for a matter of facts.
Andrew Duff
Well I mean the treaties process the founding treaties, which go back to the Treaty of Paris in 1951 and all those things that have happened throughout that period. I suppose comprise a corpus of constitutional law, which is the statute of the European Union. But as you know the pile of these treaties, when you pile them up on a table is very tall and very heavy and the drafting hasn't always been very good. In fact it’s always been, not always, its frequently been drafted so that the outcomes have been ambiguous. They’ve sort of disguised the purpose of changing the Treaty- there’s been= the states have kalouded in ambiguity when they drafted these things. And it’s not a surprise that the public is uncertain as to their meaning. It’s very hard to oblige the citizen to be interested in constitutional law. The American people think they have this great thing the constitution, but they’ve never read it, and they have no idea how much its grown with amendment after amendment and how complex it is has become. The idea that it is simple concise clear thing, you know the Magna Carta.