Detailed walk through the codecision procedure

This article provides a detailed walk through the codecision procedure used to take many legislative decisions in the European Community; it also describes some historical points.

The detail is not needed for the basic understanding and is therefore not part of the codecision article itself.

The detail is indeed complicated but some information which is not important for understanding what it is may be important for full understanding.

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 positions. All steps are discussed in detail, which is complicated, but a summary is already found in the Codecision article.

History

The Codecision procedure was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht which formed the European Union and has now almost completely replaced the Cooperation procedure, which provided only two, but not three readings. Only very few codecision procedures have been rejected so far.

In February 2000, the European Commission argued in its opinion on the Intergovernmental Conference in favour of extending the procedure to legislative acts for adoption by qualified majority. This has been implemented by the Treaty of Nice.

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.

Preparations and general approach

After Commission issues its proposal, the relevant working group of the Council is usually the first committee which starts working. It does so in closed working group meetings and the outcome of these meetings are kept not accessible to the public.

The result of these meetings is the [http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/glossary_en.htm#orientationGenerale General approach] (orientation generale) of the Council and is usually very similar and evenidentical to the outcome of the Council's 1st reading.

This happens while Parliament 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 its 1st reading. The Parliament is also conducting public hearings at this stage.

In the Parliament, a draftsperson( [http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/glossary_en.htm#rapporteur rapporteur] )gets responsibility to write a report about the proposal of the Commission whichis voted in the responsible Committee for this directive.

Because the Council's general approach will usually be ready much earlier than the reportof the rapporteur, rapporteurs will often include the amendments necessary 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 adoptedunder 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 ( [http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/text/index_en.htm detail] ).

First reading

The first stage after the Commission 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 institutions 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 onthe 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 possibilities:
* If all changes from the European Parliament are adopted 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 codecision process ends, the proposal is withdrawn.
* Otherwise, the conciliation phase starts within 6 weeks of the Council's decision.

As of 2005, only once has a directive ever been rejected at second reading; this was to the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions on July 6, 2005.

Conciliation

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

Possibilities:
* 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 rejectthis outcome, the proposal is withdrawn; otherwise it enters into force as directive.

As of 2005, a rejection at third reading has happened five times, the most recent one concerning a directive on port services in 2003 [http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-07-06T124416Z_01_N06196099_RTRIDST_0_TECH-TECH-EU-PATENTING-DC.XML] . Other moments this happened include in the 1st directive process for the
Directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions and in the 1st directive process for takeover bids [http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l26012a.htm] . The latter two directive proposals were re-issued by the Commission again and adopted shortly afterwards.

Final formal steps

The final formal steps for each codecision is that the president of the European Parliament signs it and the adopted text gets published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It is this written publication which formally is the point where the directive comes into force.

References