Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: 9,00, Maastricht University (Rechtsgelehrtheit ), course: European Union Law - Foundations , language: English, abstract: The following paper deals with the economic crises and the need to amend the treaty. A short introduction on the origins and the development of the European economic crises will be given, because in order to understand the plans and discussions regarding a treaty amendment and how a treaty amendment can be legally implemented, it is helpful to explain the reasons for such an amendment. Consequently a brief introduction into the development of the economic crises is given. Beside these highly theoretically issues, the paper mainly discusses the question whether there is an acute but mainly a legal need to amend the treaties on the European Union, especially with regard to the current economic situation of the Union and its Member States. Due to the fact that this is a particularly political topic it mainly concentrates on the legal requirements, problems and consequences of a possible treaty amendment. That approach can be justified by the fact that the political matters linked to that topic are almost inexhaustible and would overshadow the legal aspects. But the legal aspects are of great significance, because the planned measures have to comply with EU law and the national laws of the Member States in order to be successfully adopted.