Fabian Bohnenberger

At its next (and penultimate) plenary before the elections, the European Parliament will vote on a significant change of its Rules of Procedure. This might not sound very exciting, but the rule change will define Parliament’s future capacity to act and pass legislation. As such, it’s well worth understanding the impact of the reform – on Parliament and on how you engage with it.

The final committee report is now available, so I am taking a quick look at the proposed changes and what they will mean for parliamentary business. (For context, I just wrote about Parliament’s legislative work here.)

Some of the key reforms are:

1. Streamline the legislative process

A priority of the reforms is to reduce/better manage the increasing number of turf wars between parliamentary committees that want a say on new legislation. It’s thus unsurprising that some of the most fundamental changes aim at clarifying how new legislative proposals are assigned to committees and how committees work together.

• Associated Committee Procedure: Under the new rules this somewhat murky process of shared competence between committees is removed. (Am 41, R 57)
• Joint committee procedure: This is rephrased to specify that joint responsibility can apply to “two or three committees” – but not more! – when competences cannot be untangled. It also clarifies that the procedure only “may” be applied, which was a bit less clear under the existing rules. (Am 42, R 58)
• “Temporary legislative committees”: This is the main innovation to address the more complex competence problems. When a matter “falls within the competence of more than three committees, without the competence of any committee prevailing, the Conference of Presidents may as a last resort” (!) propose the creation of a new temporary legislative committee to deal with a specific file. The special committee exists only until the file is adopted and cannot receive or issue opinions. (Am 2, Rule 27(7) & Am 93, R 207 a new)
• Special committees: The reform seems to change/specify that special committees are set up based on a request of members or a political group, instead of (only) a proposal from the Conference of Presidents. (Am 91, R 207)
• Competence questions/Referral of files to committee: The reform creates more detailed rules to assign files to committees, including how assignment can be challenged. It sets a deadline of two weeks and requires “a detailed written justification and a substantiated alternative” for any challenge. (Am 14-22, R 48 also Am 95, R211)
• Broader cast list for trilogue preparations: The new rules require that the rapporteur of an opinion-giving committee can participate in an advisory capacity in preparatory meetings for trilogues at 1st reading stage.

2. Strengthen Parliament’s oversight and agenda-setting capacity:

Various changes aim at getting more face time with Commissioners and other relevant people. This would allow Parliament to exercise stronger oversight of the executive’s activities and help Parliament better communicate its priorities.

• “Special scrutiny hearings”: The rules would allow the Conference of Presidents to convene special hearings to question Commissioners and others on issues of major political importance. (Am 66, Rule 135a new)
• More face time with Commissioners: At every plenary, there should be a special scrutiny session with the Commission President or selected Commissioners “without predefined theme” (Am 69, R137(2)a). This expands the already existing Question Time (R137). In addition, the option is added to have question time “with the entire college of Commissioners or specific categories of Commissioners” – I’m sure the Commission will just love that – “and with other relevant representatives of Union institutions and bodies.” (Am 70, R 137(3))
• Non-cooperation: The reform also outlines possible sanctions in case of refusal to cooperate with special scrutiny hearings (Am 60, R 123a new), although I’m not sure they sound as scary as intended.
• “Ad hoc part-sessions”: The Conference of Presidents may also convene extra plenaries on matters of significant political importance – without voting. (Am 74, Rule 154 – paragraph 4 a new)
• Topical debates: The new rules create the option to hold “debates on specific matters of interest to the European Union”. (Am 76, R 160 a new) Not sure how different this is from the “topical debates” that already exist. (R 162)
• Confirmation of Commissioners: For example, the reform adds new expectations on what information the President-elect of the Commission should make available to Parliament. This now includes the “the planned structure of the new Commission” and “horizontal issues, including gender balance in that College.” (Am 62, R 125 and Am 97, Annex VII)

3. Increase financial oversight

• Budgetary assessments: The reform would require that all new legislative proposals with budgetary implications would be subject to a budgetary assessment by the relevant parliamentary committee (Am 40, R56a new). This seems to expand on the current R42 on financial compatibility, which is deleted.
• Executability assessment: The rules also demand that “pilot projects and preparatory actions shall be subject to a prior executability assessment by the Commission.” (Am 52, R 94) Not sure what this is about.

What does it mean?

Yes, I agree this unfortunately all sounds very procedural, which makes it difficult to grasp the real world impact of these changes – especially if you are not interacting with Parliament regularly.

But it is clear from the reform proposal that Parliament wants to (further) strengthen its voice and influence in EU decision-making – why else try to drag Commissioners more frequently in front of Parliament and plan new debates on “specific matters of interest to the European Union”.

It is also important that Parliament is trying to streamline its procedures to improve how it debates and adopts new EU legislation. This will address delays and reduce conflicts between rivalling committees, which can focus attention on better law-making.

Finally (and if you made it this far), there’s also some stuff in there that is just funny – who hasn’t had this problem with their events: “Members shall not have pre-allocated seats and shall be encouraged to sit at the front of the Chamber.” (Am 72, R 137(6)a new)