Overview of European Lawmaking
The overall direction of
European lawmaking is set by the European Council, which agrees the EU's
long-term goals. They set guidelines
for the Commission to follow and also pass powers to the Commission to
act on areas covered by the first pillar of the European Union, which deals
with a wide range of policies including Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the
Single Market, social policy, asylum policy, and the Common Agricultural and
Fisheries policies. The second and
third pillars of the EU, which are Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
and Justice and Home Affairs Policy (JHA), are controlled directly by the
European Council.
The Commission can propose
two types of laws: directives and regulations.
Directives require new national legislation whereas regulations work
within existing laws and so do not need further legislation at a national
level.
The European Court of Justice
(ECJ) is the legal authority responsible for ensuring that EU law is followed. The Commission can take legal action against
a member state government if it feels they are not putting the legislation into
place properly. It also has the power
of judicial review over new legislation to ensure that it is
legal under existing EU law.
How does the process work?
In first pillar areas, only the
Commission has the ability to propose new laws. The European Parliament and the Council of
the European Union then examine the proposals and suggest amendments
before voting on whether the law should pass.
Although there are several ways in which the Parliament and Council can
examine laws, the most common method is the co-decision procedure.
In the co-decision procedure
the Council and Parliament must both agree on the wording of the
legislation. After the first reading of
the legislation by both of the bodies, the Parliament can propose
amendments. The Council then adopts a
Common Position accepting, rejecting or making further amendments to the
bill. If Parliament does not accept the
Common Position, then the Commission can either withdraw the legislation or a
Conciliation Committee is convened between the Parliament and Council to try to
adopt a joint text that they both agree on.
If this is successful, the law is passed, if not then it is rejected.
The Council is the only
institution that deals with legislation in the second and third pillars,
although they must ask the European Parliament for its opinion. Legislation in both of these pillars must be
passed by a unanimous vote within the Council. The Lisbon Treaty, due to come into force in 2009 will change the EU's legislative process. It will increase the Parliament's power by extending the co-decision procedure, removing the national veto from certain policy areas and expanding Qualified Majority Voting (QMV).
Comitology
Once legislation has been
passed into law, it needs to be implemented by the European Council. The Council has passed a lot of
responsibility for this phase of the legislative process to the Commission. However, the Council has also created a
series of committees formed of national experts that work with the Commission
during the implementation process and who can refer measures that they disagree
with back to the Council for review.
This procedure is known as
comitology and has been highly criticised by the European Parliament because
the comitology committees' work is not transparent. There are also complaints that comitology gives the Council and
national Governments too much control over the Commission, which interferes
with the relationship between these different institutions.
Quotes
'The European Council shall provide the Union with the
necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political
guidelines thereof.' - Article 4 of
the Treaty on European Union, 1992
'[The EU's] ways are complicated to the point of
incomprehensibility'. Dr Helen
Szamuely, Bruges Group
Technical Terms
Judicial Review: the power of the European Court of Justice to review any new EU
legislation to ensure that it is legal.
Amendment:
an alteration to the text of a proposed law.
Co-decision:
A structure that means that EU decisions must be taken jointly by the
Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
