Codecision procedure

The Codecision procedure is one of the legislative procedures of the European Community, the 1st of the three pillars of the European Union. It almost completely replaced the Cooperation procedure, which provided only two, not three readings.

It was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht which formed the European Union. It gives the European Parliament the power to adopt instruments jointly with the Council of the European Union. It has strengthened Parliament's legislative powers considerably, initially in the following fields:

• free movement of workers
• right of establishment
• services
• the internal market
• education (incentive measures)
• health (incentive measures)
• consumer policy
• trans-European networks (guidelines)
• environment (general action programme)
• culture (incentive measures)
• research (framework programme).

The Treaty of Amsterdam has simplified the codecision procedure, making it quicker, more effective and more transparent. And it has been extended to new areas such as

• social exclusion
• public health and
• the fight against fraud affecting the European Community's financial interests.

Since the codecision procedure is regarded as a complement to qualified majority voting, the European Commission argued, in its opinion on the Intergovernmental Conference launched in February 2000, in favour of extending the procedure to legislative acts for adoption by qualified majority. This has been implemented by the Treaty of Nice.

It is now the legislative process for most directives.

Under this procedure, legislation proposals are sent by the European Commission to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers), who discuss them independently. If the bodies are unable to come to an agreement, a 'conciliation committee ' is set up with an equal number of members from Parliament and Council in order to reconcile the two. Both bodies must reach an agreement in order for the legislation to pass.

Principles

The Commission has a monopoly of legislative initiative in all the areas which are subject to the codecision procedure. It may also itself alter any such proposal (Article 250(2) EC Treaty). The Commission can also pull back its proposal anytime, which cancels the whole procedure.

If this procedure is used for a directive, the text proposed by the Commission is also called directive proposal or draft directive.

The procedure has three phases, called readings, in which both the Parliament and the Council discuss the text on the table and take position. These are described in more detail below.

Policy areas which require co-decision

The policy areas which require co-decision under the EU treaties as of 2004 are:

• non-discrimination on the basis of nationality
• the right to move and reside
• the free movement of workers
• social security for migrant workers
• the right of establishment
• transport
• the internal market
• employment
• customs co-operation
• the fight against social exclusion
• equal opportunities and equal treatment
• implementing decisions regarding the European Social Fund
• education
• vocational training
• culture
• health
• consumer protection
• trans-European networks
• implementing decisions regarding the European Regional Development Fund
• research
• the environment
• transparency
• preventing and combating fraud
• statistics
• setting up a data protection advisory body

(taken from http://europa.eu.int/institutions/decision-making/index_en.htm)

Preparations and general approach

The practice is that, after the Commission issues its proposal, the relevant working group of the Council is usually the first gremium which starts working. It does so in closed working group meetings, even the outcome of these meetings are kept not accessible to the public.

The result of these meetings is the General approach (orientation generale) of the Council and is usually very similar and even identical to the outcome of the Council's 1st reading.

The Parliament meanwhile has to wait for the opinions of the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee because the parliament officially has to include their opinions into their 1st reading.

In the European Parliament, a draftsperson (rapporteur) gets responsiblity to write a report about the proposal of the Commission which is voted in the responsible Committee for this directive.

The European Parliament is also conducting public hearings at this stage.

Because the Council's general approach will usually be ready much earlier than the report of the rapporteur, rapporteurs will often include the amendments neccesary to reach the Common Approach.

On some directives, the rapporteur works closely with the Council using trialogue meetings to find a common text with the council and tries to only put amendments into his report which are approved in these informal and closed meetings with Council representatives. This has happened for example for the Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, which was adopted under time pressure just before the enlargement of the Union in 2004.

When the report is adopted by the responsible committee, the report can be put to vote in a plenary session (detail).

First Reading

The first stage after the Commissison proposed a text is called First reading, which means that the European Parliament and the Council work on finding their initial positions for the rest of the procedure or, if there is consent or huge pressure, both institions may already agree at first reading. But generally, both institutions have all their options open at this stage.

In the Parliament's first reading, the majority of the votes which are given are enough to decide this particular vote yes on adopting a motion, for example to adopt an amendment.

After the vote in the parliament, the Council has its first reading on the basis of the text from the parliament.

It can do two things:

• Accept the text as voted in the parliament: This means the directive comes into effect as voted in the parliament.
• If it cannot agree with the parliament, it has to decide a common position between the member states. As this always is a compromise between the member states, this is also often referred to as compromise, as in principle, the councils should take the position of the Parliament into account in order to reach a consensus with the parliament.

Second reading

After the Council has sent its common position to the European Parliament, a time period of 3 months starts to run. If the Parliament does nothing within this time frame, the common position enters into force as directive.

The Parliament can extend this time by one month if it decides so.

If the European Parliament does not agree, it has to adopt changes to the common position or reject the common position, the latter would end the codecision procedure at this point.

To change or reject the text in 2nd reading, the parliament needs an absolute majority of the 732 Members for a yes on an amendment - for each change.

If the text is changed the text goes for 2nd reading in the Council of the European Union:

Three possiblities:

• If all changes from the European Parliament are adoped by the Council, this text is adopted as directive and enters into force, but on the amendments where the Commission gave a negative opinion, the Council would have to act unanimously.
• If the council rejects the text, this codections process ends, the proposal is withdrawn.
• Otherwise, the conciliation phase starts within 6 weeks.

Conciliation

About 6 weeks, representatives from the Council, the Commission and the Parliament meet in conciliation committee meetings and try to find a common text to which all could agree upon.

Possiblities:

• If the committee does not come to a result, the proposal is withdrawn, the process ends.
• If the committee comes up with a text, this text goes into 3rd reading.

Third reading

The outcome of the conciliation is sent to Council and Parliament and if Council or Parliament reject this outcome, the proposal is withdrawn; otherwise it enters into force as directive.

A rejection at third reading happened at least once, in the 1st procedure process for the Directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions. Take-over bids was another controversial issue which could be added here too.

Comments

Some critics contend that the codecision procedure gives too much power to the Commission and the Council, where lobbying takes places, particularly on behalf of important corporate interests, at the expense of the Parliament, which is elected by the people. Also it could be argued that the process is weighted against the Parliament at second reading as Council amendments have to be modified or rejected by an absolute majority of MEPs, not just those in the chamber at that reading. Defenders reply that the EU is not a federation and, in the final analysis, the national governments should remain accountable for their collective decisions.

External links

References and official information:

• Information from the European Commission:
  • Article 251 of the Treaty establishing the European Communiy
  • Codecision flowchart and detailed step-by-step description
• Information from the Europenan Parliament:
  • Conciliation and Codecision - A Guide how Parliament co-legislates (PDF)
  • Other articles of the Treaties which are relevant to directives under co-decision
  • Articles related to the Common Position
• Information from the Council:
  • The Council of the European Union's Codecision page which also links to its Co-decision Guide (as PDF) it contains a very comprehensive view from the viewpoint of the council
• Information from other institutions:
  • Report from the UK House of Commons Committee on European Scrutiny on the procedure
  • The working procedure in the parliament (LGIP)
• Analysis and History:
  • Codecision: The recent developments
  • Improving the functioning of the codecision procedure (pdf, doc)
  • Formal and Informal Institutions under Codecision: Continuous Constitution Building in Europe
  • The extension of the codecision procedure in Amsterdam (PDF)

Other information sources:

• Detailed description from Xavier Druis
• A Colored Flowchart Poster in pdf or sxd format under GPL.
• AEL wiki page about the Co-decision procedure
• Article at EUABC