Single European Act

Single European Act

Single European Act
Type	Amending treaty
Signed	17 February 1986 28 February 1986
Location	Luxembourg, 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
Full text
Single European Act at Wikisource
After amendments made by the SEA Treaty: Consolidated version of EURATOM treaty (1986) Consolidated version of the ECSC treaty (1986) Consolidated version of TEEC (1986)

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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.

Anticipating the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the SEA signatories declared themselves "moved by the will to continue the work undertaken on the basis of the Treaties establishing the European Communities and to transform relations as a whole among their States into a European Union".^[1]