MEPs fight for rights

By Stewart Fleming

Date: 16/03/06

Members of the European Parliament have stepped up pressure on the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to give them more say in rewriting implementing legislation.

The Parliament is withholding funding from the so-called comitology committees - the groups of national experts who are brought to Brussels to draft implementing rules, which are often highly technical.

"Unless these credits are released the committees will not be able to continue their work," a senior member state official said.

The move comes as part of a significant trial of strength between the three institutions that could yet precipitate legislative deadlock.

Last September the UK presidency formed an ad hoc Council working group, known as a 'Friends of the presidency' committee, to negotiate an agreement on rebalancing the powers of the Commission, Council and Parliament to write implementing legislation. The group has been meeting every two weeks and will meet again next Wednesday (22 March).

The talks are aimed at putting the Parliament on "an equal footing" as co-legislator when deciding the shape of implementing legislation. At present, once the Parliament agrees to delegate the power to write implementing legislation to the Commission, it has no further chance to shape the legislation or decide whether or not it can come into force, whereas the Council can reject it by a qualified majority vote.

The three institutions are now trying to find a way of bringing the comitology procedures into line with the greater powers of co-decision over legislation that the Parliament was given by the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. Specifically, they want to correct what one participant described as "a democratic disequilibrium".

"How can it be right that the Parliament and the Council together decide on framework laws but it is effectively only the member states which can block [implementing] legislation?" one official asked.

The imbalance would have been corrected by the EU constitution, which would have given the Parliament an equal say with the Council in drawing up implementing legislation.

MEPs met Hans Winkler, Austrian deputy foreign minister, this week to discuss a new text on comitology presented by the presidency.

Under the proposal the Parliament and Council would be given parity on implementing legislation delegated to the Commission, with both institutions given one month to object to legislation proposed by the Commission. If one of the institutions objects to the proposal it cannot be adopted and the Commission has to put forward a new proposal or revert to the full co-decision process.

Parliament argues that one month is too short and wants three months. It has doubts about the definition of decisions covered by the new procedure and wants to be able to object on the substance of implementing legislation.

The comitology difficulties pose particularly pressing problems for those trying to draw up detailed rules for several directives of the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). Under the flexible Lamfalussy process for approving detailed rules underpinning FSAP directives, such as the market abuse directive, Parliament demanded and got 'sunset clauses' establishing that, without the Parliament's approval, the implementing legislation could not be revised. Europe's financial services industry is worrying that, unless an agreement is reached, the EU's ability to revise its laws swiftly will be undermined.

Article reports that Members of the European Parliament stepped up pressure on the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to give them more say in rewriting implementing legislation. The Parliament was withholding funding from the so-called comitology committees - the groups of national experts who are brought to Brussels to draft implementing rules - in order to be given equal influence on the redrafting of implementing legislation. Author suggests that this move came as part of a significant trial of strength between the three institutions that could precipitate legislative deadlock.