Acquis communautaire
EU's accumulated law and legal precedent
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Chapters
During the process of the enlargement of the European Union, the acquis was divided into 31 chapters for the purpose of negotiation between the EU and the candidate states for membership for the fifth enlargement (the ten that joined in 2004 plus Romania and Bulgaria which joined in 2007). These chapters were:
- Free movement of goods
- Free movement of persons
- Freedom to provide services
- Free movement of capital
- Company law
- Competition policy
- Agriculture
- Fisheries
- Transport policy
- Taxation
- Economic and Monetary Union
- Statistics
- Social policy and employment
- Energy
- Industrial policy
- Small and medium-sized enterprises
- Science and research
- Education and training
- Telecommunication and information technologies
- Culture and audio-visual policy
- Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments
- Environment
- Consumers and health protection
- Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs
- Customs union
- External relations
- Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
- Financial control
- Financial and budgetary provisions
- Institutions
- Others
Beginning with the negotiations with Croatia (which joined in 2013), the acquis is split up into 35 chapters instead, with the purpose of better balancing the chapters: (dividing the most difficult ones into separate chapters for easier negotiation, uniting some easier chapters, moving some policies between chapters, as well as renaming a few of them in the process)
- Free movement of goods
- Freedom of movement for workers
- Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
- Free movement of capital
- Public procurement
- Company law
- Intellectual property law
- Competition policy
- Financial services
- Information society and media
- Agriculture and rural development
- Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy
- Fisheries
- Transport policy
- Energy
- Taxation
- Economic and monetary policy
- Statistics
- Social policy and employment (including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men)
- Enterprise and industrial policy
- Trans-European networks
- Regional policy and co-ordination of structural instruments
- Judiciary and fundamental rights
- Justice, freedom and security
- Science and research
- Education and culture
- Environment
- Consumer and health protection
- Customs union
- External relations
- Foreign, security and defence policy
- Financial control
- Financial and budgetary provisions
- Institutions
- Other issues
Correspondence between chapters of the 5th and the 6th Enlargement:
Such negotiations usually involved agreeing transitional periods before new member states needed to implement the laws of the European Union fully and before they and their citizens acquired full rights under the acquis.
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Terminology
The term acquis is also used to describe laws adopted under the Schengen Agreement, prior to its integration into the European Union legal order by the Treaty of Amsterdam, in which case one speaks of the Schengen acquis. In relation to consumer law and consumer protection, the phrase "consumer acquis" is also used.
It has been used to describe the achievements of the Council of Europe (an international organisation unconnected with the European Union):
The Council of Europe's acquis in standard setting activities in the fields of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedoms should be considered as milestones towards the European political project, and the European Court of Human Rights should be recognised as the pre-eminent judicial pillar of any future architecture.
It has also been applied to the body of "principles, norms and commitments" of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):
Another question under debate has been how the Partners and others could implement the OSCE acquis, in other words its principles, norms, and commitments on a voluntary basis.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) introduced the concept of the OECD Acquis in its "Strategy for enlargement and outreach", May 2004.