| Author (Person) | Spinant, Dana |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.9, No.41, 4.12.03, p2 |
| Publication Date | 04/12/2003 |
| Content Type | News |
|
By Dana Spinant Date: 04/12/03 THE Eu ropean Commission is set to achieve only half of what it promised to do in its 2003 work programme, according to an unpublsihed report seen by European Voice. Leaders of the European Parliament, the institution responsible for overseeing the Commission's work and sanctioning it if it fails to meet its obligations, said that this is a proof of "over-optimism and bad planning" on the part of the EU executive. The report, Better Lawmaking 2003, which scrutinizes the Commission's bid to improve the quality of legislation, to assess its impact and consult stakeholders, is due to be adopted by the College on 10 December. It shows that commissioners would have adopted some 370 proposals by the end of the year. Yet, in the 2003 work programme, the College planned to adopt 590 legislative and non-legislative proposals (such as reports to the European Council or Parliament). The situation is actually worse than it might appear, one Commission official admitted. "The implementation rate of the Commission in 2003 is actually around 50%, because many of the proposals that it would have adopted this year are items that were supposed to be presented in the previous years," he said. Hans-Gert Pöttering, the chairman of the Parliament's largest political group, the European People's Party (EPP-ED), warned that "the Commission should not promise anything that it cannot do, that it cannot fulfil". But the Parliament's most powerful man hopes "that this reduction will in the end have good consequences for the quality of the legislation the Commission proposes". He urged "a change from quantity to quality". Caroline Jackson, the chairwoman of the Parliament's committee on environment, public health and consumer policy, believes that the Commission "has been childish in the past. They always wanted to produce too much and they failed". "They have now been asked to take into account the impact of their proposals, and they found this difficult." The British Conservative MEP points out the new policy of assessing the impact of the Commission's proposals - on business or environment, for instance - triggered huge delays on the preparation of laws. For excample, the battery legislation is already six months late. But Jackson would not like the Commission to rush through the remaining items of legislation on their 2003 agenda. She believes the Commission should "produce less", not more laws. "The 2004 work programme should be a series of blank pages. It should be a year of profound assessment of what the Commission proposed so far." An official of the Commission's Secretariat-General admitted the EU executive is being overwhelmed by the need to carry out impact assessment for its proposals. "This is the first year when the Commission carries out impact assessments, it is an experiment year. "But we will recover this time invested in impact assessment at a later stage, when the decision is being made. The political deliberations for adopting laws would be shorter, as a number of arguments that could be used when the proposal is discussed are already ruled out by the impact assessment. "We devote more time to the preparation of the legislation, but less time will be needed to adopt it." However, the official admitted that there is a "general problem" of delays in implementing the institution's working programme, as "proposals that do not require impact assessment are also presented late". The European Commission's Vice-President Loyola the Palacio will in the next week discuss with Parliament's representatives about items on the 2003 agenda that would still have to be presented before the end of the year, or early next year. |
|
| Related Links |
|
| Subject Categories | Politics and International Relations |
