1Short title and interpretation
(1)This Act may be cited as. the European Communities Act 1972.
(2)In this Act and, except in so far as the context otherwise requires, in any other Act (including any Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland)—
" the Communities " means the European Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community;
" the Treaties " or " the Community Treaties " means, subject to subsection (3) below, the pre-accession treaties, that is to say, those described in Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act, taken with—
(a)the treaty relating to the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community and to the European Atomic Energy Community, signed at Brussels on the 22nd January 1927; and
(b)the decision, of the same date, of the Council of the European Communities relating to the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Coal and Steel Community;
and any other treaty entered into by any of the Communities, with or without any of the member States, or entered into, as a treaty ancillary to any of the Treaties, by the United Kingdom ;
and any expression defined in Schedule 1 to this Act has the meaning there given to it.
(3)If Her Majesty by Order in Council declares that a treaty specified in the Order is to be regarded as one of the Community Treaties as herein defined, the Order shall be conclusive that it is to be so regarded; but a treaty entered into by the United Kingdom after the 22nd January 1972, other than a pre-accession treaty to which the United Kingdom accedes on terms settled on or before that date, shall not be so regarded unless it is so specified, nor be so specified unless a draft of the Order in Council has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.
(4)For purposes of subsections (2) and (3) above, " treaty " includes any international agreement, and any protocol or annex to a treaty or international agreement.