Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council adapting to Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union a number of legal acts providing for the use of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny

The Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, substantially modifies the framework for powers that are conferred upon the Commission by the legislator. It makes a clear distinction between the powers delegated to the Commission to adopt non-legislative acts of general application to supplement or amend certain non-essential elements of a legislative act (delegated acts) on the one hand and the powers conferred on the Commission to adopt implementing acts on the other hand. They are subject to entirely different legal frameworks.

In terms of the wording, the definition of delegated acts in Article 290(1) is very similar to that of acts which, under Decision 1999/468/EC ("the Comitology Decision"), are subject to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny (RPS) established in Article 5a of this Decision. In both cases, the acts in question are of general application and seek to amend or supplement certain non-essential elements of the legislative instrument.

For this reason, the revision of the Comitology Decision by the Regulation 182/2011 ("the Comitology Regulation") left out of its scope Article 5a of the Comitology Decision. Article 5a establishing the RPS had therefore to be provisionally maintained for the purposes of existing basic acts referring to this Article. In this context, the Commission made a commitment to formally adapt those existing provisions providing for RPS to the delegated acts regime.

The Commission issued the following statement at the moment of the adoption of the Comitology Regulation:
"As regards legislative acts in force which currently contain references to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, the Commission will review the provisions attached to this procedure in each instrument it intends to modify, in order to adapt them in due course according to the criteria laid down in the Treaty. In addition, the European Parliament and the Council will be entitled to signal basic acts they consider important to adapt as a matter of priority.

The Commission will assess the results of this process by the end of 2012 in order to estimate how many legislative acts containing references to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny remain in force. The Commission will then prepare the appropriate legislative initiatives to complete the adaptation. The overall objective of the Commission is that, by the end of the 7th term of the Parliament, all provisions referring to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny would have been removed from all legislative instruments."

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)451: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:451:FIN

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)452: Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council adapting to Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union a number of legal acts in the area of Justice providing for the use of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2013:452:FIN

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)452: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:452:FIN

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