EU基本権憲章への反対に至る政治過程

When the Lisbon Treaty negotiations started in the spring of 2007, an intense dispute arose over the legal status of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. While most states agreed on conferring legally binding force to the Charter, three states―the UK, Poland and the Czech Republic―expressed opposition to it. Amid the conflicting opinions, the Member States eventually worked out one political compromise: the Charter was to be given binding status but, in exchange, a ‘Protocol on the Application on the Charter’ was drawn up for these states. The Protocol, which is often referred to as on ‘opt-out’ or ‘exemption’ from the application of the Charter, is currently applied to the UK and Poland, and the Czech Republic is also to join them later.<br>Why did these three states oppose a legally binding Charter in the Lisbon Treaty negotiations? Their opposition is puzzling given that, back in 2004, these three states had accepted a legally binding Charter. Existing studies and newspapers report that domestic concerns these three states had led them to oppose the Charter. But, domestic factors are arguably not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of why they opposed the Charter. The Charter was designed to codify the existing judicial practices of fundamental rights protection within the EU without amending the current competences of the EU. With such a guarantee, there should have been few concerns about the Charter.<br>The purpose of this article is to examine why these states opposed the Charter in the Lisbon Treaty negotiations. To this end, it stresses the need to look not only at domestic factors but also at EU level factors. EU level factors, which are considered in this article, refer to activities of the EU institutions, such as the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice. Empirical examination shows that the activities of the EU institutions or behaviours of some members of EU institutions came into play as additional factors which strengthened concerns in these states about the Charter or which deepened their scepticism towards the EU. Therefore it is argued that, in combination with domestic factors, EU level factors, albeit in varying degrees and in different forms, were also involved in their opposition to the Charter.