Select Committee on European Union Twenty-Second Report

Initiation of EU Legislation

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

1.  The purpose of this report is to explore the processes by which ideas are transformed into EU legislation, principally by the Commission, and to draw conclusions as to the appropriateness of those processes in today's EU. Our starting point was to ask: "Where do the ideas for legislation come from?" and "How are ideas developed to the point when they are brought forward as formal legislative proposals?"

2.  The focus of this Report is legislation. We did not consider the initiation of proposals for action in the second pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Nor did we consider powers delegated by EU legislation to the Commission to make subordinate legislation subject to a committee procedure (so-called "comitology"). We concentrate on the initiatives of the Commission and the Member States and only note, without discussion, the right of initiative in certain specific areas of other institutions and bodies.

3.  The EU Treaties set out the procedures by which proposals for legislation may be adopted, and the way in which a proposal proceeds to adoption can be followed by those interested, for example, through the websites of the EU Institutions. Our inquiry considered what happens before draft legislation is formally submitted for adoption, and was intended to lift the veil, to the extent possible in an investigation of this sort, in order to examine the processes of creation and development of legislative proposals. In the final chapter of this Report, we draw out some themes which emerged from the evidence we received and set out some conclusions.

CAN THE SOURCES OF LEGISLATION BE TRACED?

4.  Dr Eve Sariyiannidou commented: "The way in which legislative proposals are created is not subject to observable rules and processes." (p 156) Is it possible to say where the germ of an idea for legislation comes from?

5.  Some of our witnesses thought this could not be done, at any rate in relation to an individual proposal. Catherine Day (Secretary General of the Commission), for example, regarded it as not practical, indeed "impossible", because there is a myriad of sources for ideas. "How can you get into a Commissioner's brain and say 'Where did this idea come from?'" (Q 377) Lord Brittan of Spennithorne (a former Commissioner) was of the same view: "the Commission puts forward a proposal. It has to take the responsibility … Whether it would have come up with the idea if somebody had not made the proposal is a pretty abstract question, which I do not think is really capable of an answer." (Q 60) Nevertheless, our witnesses were able to point to the sources of ideas both in general terms and in relation to some specific measures.

6.  Dr Sariyiannidou thought the difficulty of identifying sources arose from the informality of the processes. "The Treaties set out the general competences of the institutions and govern only the basic principles of the operation of the specific legislative procedures", whereas "the actual process is ad hoc, unconstrained by formal rules, and characterised by informal institutional practice and various channels of consultation and cooperation." She recommended focussing on the internal institutional and administrative practices of the Commission but also on organised interests at national and sub-national levels. (p 154) That is what we have sought to do.

7.  The membership of Sub-Committee E which undertook this inquiry is set out in Appendix 1. We have taken evidence in Westminster and in Brussels. Those who submitted evidence, written and oral, are listed in Appendix 2. We are grateful to them all. The Call for Evidence is reproduced at Appendix 3.

8.  In this Report, we use the expression "European Union" or "EU" to include the European Communities on which the EU is founded. For other EU expressions, readers may wish to refer to Appendix 4, which reproduces the glossary in our recent Report: The Treaty of Lisbon: an impact assessment.[1]

9.  We make this Report to the House for debate.

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1   10th Report, 2007-08, HL 62. Back