European wars of religion European wars of religion The European wars of religion were a series of religious wars waged in 16th and 17th century Europe. The wars were fought in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation (1517), which disrupted the religious order in the Catholic countries of Europe. However, religion was not the only cause of the wars, which also included revolts, territorial ambitions, and Great Power conflicts. By the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Catholic France was allied with the Protestant countries against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy. The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), establishing a
Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism mechanism, which would subsequently be negotiated as an intergovernmental treaty outside of the EU framework, legitimacy under EU law. The two line amendment to Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which was approved by the European Council on 16 December 2010, reads: Due to the intergovernmental nature of the permanent lending mechanism, which was named the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the simplified treaty revision procedure could be used for the TFEU amendment as the EU's powers were not being increased. However, the amendment would not fulfill the German demand that the removal of