FOREWORD—what this
Report is about
In this Report, we seek to describe how draft European
Union legislation comes into being. We examine the sources of
ideas for legislation and the processes by which ideas are developed
to the point when they are submitted, as formal proposals for
legislation, to the legislating institutions of the Union.
We consider the "right of initiative"—the
power to make formal proposals—and who has it. We look at
how, in practice, the principal institution with a right of initiative—the
European Commission—develops draft legislation. We examine
how other institutions influence the initiation and development
of proposals by the Commission, and how other organisations within
civil society seek to make their influence felt. We consider how
the Member States influence the Commission's work, and the use
they make of their own right of initiative in the field of police
cooperation and criminal justice. We ask whether the Commission's
near-monopoly of the power to make legislative proposals is justified.
Most of this Report is descriptive; we hope to shed
some light on an area of EU activity that is not often examined.
In the final chapter, we draw out some themes and set out some
observations, conclusions and recommendations.
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