Single European Act

the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome

Key facts

Type: Amending treaty
Signed: 17 February 1986 28 February 1986
Location: Luxembourg City , Luxembourg The Hague , Netherlands
Effective: 1 July 1987
Parties: EU member states
Depositary: Government of Italy
Citations: Prior amendment treaty: Merger Treaty (1965) Subsequent amendment treaty: Maastricht Treaty (1992)
Languages: 10 Danish Dutch English French German Greek Irish Italian Portuguese Spanish

via Wikipedia infobox

Article

The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) it helped codify European Political Co-operation. The amending treaty was signed at Luxembourg City on 17 February 1986 and at The Hague on 28 February 1986. It came into effect on 1 July 1987, under the Delors Commission.

A core element of the SEA was to create a single market within the European Community by 1992, when – it was hoped – the necessary legislative reforms would have been completed. The belief was that in removing non-tariff barriers to cross-border intra-Community trade and investment such measures would provide the twelve Member States a broad economic stimulus. To facilitate their removal, the SEA reformed the Community legislative process both by introducing the cooperation procedure and by extending Qualified Majority Voting to new areas. Measures were also taken to shorten the legislative process.