The Lisbon treaty, ill-fated European Union constitution's

Thank You very much for your explanation,sir!

I don't get it. To my understanding, The LISBON TREATY is the SUCCESSOR which is modified by the non restrictive clause at option A. Is there anything wrong with that? Can anyone help?

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shawrochis Yes, the Lisbon treaty is the successor. However, we don't want to modify that! Let's look at the sequence in B and A:

B) The Lisbon treaty, successor to the ill-fated European Union constitution, which in turn followed the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties, would create a permanent club rulebook

The Lisbon treaty is the successor to the EU constitution, meaning that the Lisbon treaty came after. The modifier ("which in turn . . . ") modifies the EU constitution, telling us that the EU constitution followed the M, A, & N treaties. So we have this order:

M, A, & N treaties --> EU constitution --> Lisbon treaty

A) The Lisbon treaty, ill-fated European Union constitution's successor, which in turn followed the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties, would create a permanent club rulebook

In this version, the Lisbon treaty is still the successor to the EU constitution. However, since the "which" modifier now applies to "successor," we're saying that the Lisbon treaty also followed the M, A, & N treaties. While this is technically true--the Lisbon treaty is the last item, so it followed everything--this takes away the clarity of sequence. Now we just know that the Lisbon treaty followed everything!

M, A, N , & EU --> Lisbon treaty

This also renders the phrase "in turn" meaningless. This term is used to indicate a chain of events in which one person or thing both "gives" and "receives," or acts as both object and subject, as in "I gave the gift card to my brother-in-law, who in turn gave it to his co-worker."

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