That only applied to 10 articles of the treaty . The consent procedure ( then called assent ) meant that Parliament ’ s approval in a single yes / no vote was required for the accession of new Member States and for association agreements with non-EU countries .
This set of amendments and additions to the existing treaties was called the Single European Act ( SEA ). It introduced a deadline ( end of 1992 ) for completing the single market , which gave a new sense of purpose to the EU and , in turn , generated new pressures for reform and further integration measures ( such as a single currency for the single market ). It was the first general revision of the treaties since 1957 , breaking what had become a taboo and thereby paving the way for more revisions later .
Indeed , this pattern was to be repeated four more times : Parliament pushing for treaty reform , putting precise proposals on the table and helping secure an IGC , resulting in a partial but insufficient reform . This resulted in :
• the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht ,
• the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam ,
• the 2001 Treaty of Nice ,
• the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon .
For each of these negotiations , Parliament was brought further into the treaty reform process . For the IGC that led to the SEA , Parliament ’ s President and Spinelli were politely heard at one of the meetings . For the Maastricht negotiations , an interinstitutional conference met in parallel to the IGC . For Amsterdam , Parliament had two representatives in the preparatory Reflection Group and participated in some of the IGC meetings , including the final European Council meeting . For Nice , the two Parliament representatives participated fully in all IGC meetings . For Lisbon , a prepara-
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