Fabian Bohnenberger

I recently gave a presentation on the early stages of EU law-making, i.e., the European Commission’s internal processes to plan, prepare and propose new legislation.

It’s crucial to understand this part of the EU policy process because most decisions are made before the Commission adopts its legislative proposal.

Still, the Commission’s procedures are hard to grasp for outsiders, creating challenges for effective engagement.

My presentation tries to fill these knowledge gaps. I walk the audience through the early stages of the EU policy process leading up to the adoption of legislative proposal and highlight critical moments for engagement.

To me, the simplified version of the process looks like this:

I intentionally keep this figure abstract because the process is complex. Each puzzle piece denotes an important stage of law-making, but in reality they overlap, repeat, or are occasionally skipped. No single process chart can capture all this detail.

You’ll also notice that the puzzle is unfinished, so other pieces can be added to complete the picture.

I illustrate each stage with the recently adopted Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), for which I have recorded a detailed timeline.

What about the rest of the process?

To help you orient yourselves: I also have a “map” of the law-making process beyond the Commission proposal. This one is less detailed, but looks slightly more professional:

The puzzle pieces above cover only the upper part of this figure leading up to the Commission proposal.

The full explanation of the second figure is here. But the key message is the same: A lot of key decisions are made before the Commission adopts its proposal. If you wait for the published proposal, you are already very late to the party.

So whatever image you prefer, it’s very worthwhile knowing how to navigate the early stages of EU policy-making.