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 Photo: European Parliament |
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Background The main decision-making procedure is "codecision", which is used, for example, in issues concerning the EU single market. Codecision puts the Parliament and Council on a more or less equal footing: legislation is proposed by the Commission and adopted together by the Parliament and Council. The other decision-making procedures are cooperation, assent and consultation, used for "non-core" issues such as justice and home affairs. Simplified Overview (Detailed overview below) First Reading The Commission issues a draft legislative proposal and sends it to the European Parliament. The Parliament can either adopt it without amendment (which never happens) or adopt amendments. The Parliament then sends the amended text to the Council. The Council in turn has to decide which Parliament amendments it can accept and prepares a revised draft proposal, called a "Common Position". If it accepts all Parliament's amendments, the Directive is adopted without further discussion. Second Reading If the Council does not fully agree with the Parliament's first reading, the Common Position is returned to the Parliament, which has three (by default, or four if justifiable due to holidays) months to produce a "second reading". This is communicated back to the Council. The Council then decides whether or not to accept the second reading amendments from the Parliament. If it does, the proposal is adopted, if not, a "conciliation procedure" is invoked. Third Reading (Conciliation Procedure) Either the conciliation procedure reaches a compromise, which is adopted by the Parliament, and the proposal is adopted, or a compromise is not reached and the proposal falls. Detailed Overview A graph detailing this process can be downloaded from the Political Intelligence website here. STEP 1 - The European Commission's initial draft The Directorate General of the Commission in charge of the proposal produces a draft legislative text. Before this is made public, it is transmitted to all of the other Directorates General of the Commission for their input. Often, a Directive written by one DG has relevance for several others, who will want to provide input before the proposal is published. This process is called interservice consultation. Once agreement has been reached among the different services of the Commission, the Commissioners formally adopt the draft legislative proposal, normally during the weekly College of Commissioners meeting. The draft proposal is then communicated to the Parliament STEP 2 - The European Parliament first reading In the Parliament, there will be one Committee which has overall charge of the Directive, the so-called lead Committee. There may then be one or more Committees which will give opinions, which are basically amendments that that particular Committee would adopt if it were in charge of the Directive. One Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is put in charge of the report, and this MEP is referred to as the rapporteur for the report in question. As in the lead Committee, an MEP is also appointed rapporteur in each Committee giving an opinion. Each political group is allocated a number of "points" which they can use to "buy" reports for their MEPs - the number of points allocated to political groups depends on their relative size in the Parliament. The process of deciding on the rapporteurs for parliamentary reports takes place during meetings of the coordinators of parliamentary committees. The "lead" Committee only adopts its report after the "opinion" Committees have adopted theirs. The "lead" Committee usually adopts its report in three stages: 1. An introductory discussion of the issues and the setting of a deadline for amendments. 2. A discussion of the amendments. 3. The vote in Committee. Following the vote in the lead Committee (which takes place after the votes in the opinion-giving Committees), the amendments adopted are put forward to a vote of the full Parliament together with any other amendments proposed after the Committee vote. New amendments for plenary can be tabled in two ways: either by 40 MEPs (rule 150 of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure) signing an amendment or a political group tabling an amendment. The Parliament then votes on each amendment and on the legislative proposal as a whole, under simple majority voting (i.e. for an amendment to be passed, more than half of MEPs voting must vote for it). If there is more than one amendment on a particular part of a proposal, amendments are voted on starting with the one which represents the greatest departure from the proposal and finishing with the one representing the smallest change. STEP 3: The Council Common Position The EU Member States (as represented in the Council by the Minster responsible domestically for that particular policy area) have to jointly decide whether all, some or none of the European Parliament's amendments are acceptable, or if the Council will propose alternative wording. If some or all of the Parliament's amendments are rejected, the Council produces a revised legislative proposal (known as a Common Position). The Common Position is formulated by discussions between representatives of the member states in "Council Working Groups", the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) and at ministerial level (Council of Ministers). If the Council accepts all of the Parliament's amendments, the proposed legislation is adopted without any further delay. Details of the voting procedure are available from the section of this helpfile on the Council of Ministers. STEP 4: European Parliament Second Reading Once the Common Position of the Council has been officially communicated to the Parliament, the MEPs have three months (or four months if an exemption is granted due to holidays, for example) in which to produce a "second reading". If the MEPs fail to meet this deadline, the Common Position is adopted as it stands. In the second reading, the process is the same in the lead committee as it was in the first reading. The only difference is that there are no "opinions" from other Committees. Once a lead Committee second reading report has been adopted, the amendments are voted in the next full Parliament "plenary" session, together with any amendments tabled after the Committee vote (tabled under the same rules as the first reading, except for the fact that amendments introducing entirely new elements to the Directive, or which contradict provisions contained both in the Parliament's first reading AND the Council Common Position are inadmissable). In the full Parliament vote in the second reading, an absolute majority of all MEPs (50%+1) need to support an amendment for it to be adopted. STEP 5: Council review of Parliament Second Reading As an absolute majority of MEPs need to support amendments in the second reading, much fewer amendments get through the second reading. MEPs are also less likely to vote for amendments which are unlikely to be accepted by the Council - as this will delay the legislation. However, where the Council does reject amendments to the second reading, a Conciliation Procedure is invoked. For more information on conciliation, please click here. STEP 6: Conciliation procedure Under the conciliation procedure, 27 MEPs together with 27 Member State Representatives have a series of meetings in order to try to reach a compromise between the two institutions (together with the Commission as an active observer). If no compromise can be reached, the proposed legislation is abandoned. If they do reach a compromise, this is sent back to the Parliament for a final vote. For more information on conciliation, please go to the Parliament's website: http://www.europarl.eu.int/code/default_en.htm. As parliamentarians work together on a day to day basis far more than national ministry officials, some people take the view that the Parliament has a natural advantage at this stage of the process. STEP 7: Third Reading The Parliament then votes to accept the compromise agreed in the Conciliation Committee. As key MEPs from all political groups are present in the Conciliation Committee, it is usual for the compromise to be accepted at this stage. If not, the legislative proposal is abandoned. |