Amato Group

The Amato Group, officially the Action Committee for European Democracy (ACED) was a group of high-level European politicians unofficially working, over 2006–2007, on rewriting the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe into what became known as the Treaty of Lisbon (December 2007) following the earlier treaty's rejection, in 2005, by referendums in France and the Netherlands.

Led by Giuliano Amato (thus the group's unofficial name), a former Prime Minister of Italy who was also Vice-President of the original European Convention, the group was backed by the Barroso Commission, who sent two representatives, the commissioners Danuta Hübner (regional policy) and Margot Wallström (communications).

The text stripped the rejected constitution of its constitutional elements, including the article on the EU's symbols and the controversial "God-less" preamble, reduced the Charter of Fundamental Rights to one legally binding article and foresees a new name for new EU foreign policy chief, called 'Union foreign minister' in the Constitution.

The new treaty would not include everything in a single document, as the Constitution would do, but rather:[3] As a result, the new TEU defines the framework of the European Union, whereas the amended TEC defines in detail the law and decision making procedures, what the policy areas of the Union are, and which law or decision making procedure should be followed in a certain policy area.

Furthermore, the Charter of Fundamental Rights would have the same legal value as the new TEU and the amended TEC.