Fabian Bohnenberger

A brief update following adoption of the reform package on 10 April. The initial post explaining Parliament’s reform plans is here.

The committee report and additional amendments were subject to a series of votes at last week’s plenary. The report was adopted with what appears to be only minor changes. Only one extra amendment was passed.

A few interesting developments:

Process

Changes to the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure require a vote by a majority of its component members. This is a high hurdle because it means half plus one of all MEPs, i.e., 353 votes cast in favour of an amendment. (Rule 237 RoP and Art. 232 TFEU)

The timing of this rule change is interesting because the majority of MEPs tends not to return for another mandate. Most MEPs who voted on the changes last week will never experience their effects directly.

Gender Balance

The only additional amendment (submitted by both EPP and Renew) that received the required majority concerns gender balance. The new amendment stipulates that “in the process of determining the composition of each committee, political groups should strive for a fair gender representation” (Am 147/148).

However, the adopted amendment only applies to committees. Although a majority of MEPs was in favour (336 against 288), an equivalent amendment by the Left group (Am 143) that would have extended gender balance considerations to the Parliament’s President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors did not meet the required threshold to be adopted. (But the text was at least incorporated into the decision of Parliament.)

Committee Responsibilities

The votes unsurprisingly centred around the changes to the way in which files are assigned to committees. The Greens launched another unsuccessful effort to retain the “associated committee procedure” (Am 119). Am 124 even suggested a “sunset clause” that would have reinstated the procedure from January 2027. This would have given Parliament half a mandate to test the new rules. None of these amendments received the necessary support. (But the decision now highlights the need to create transitional arrangements for legislative procedures for which the “associated committee procedure” is currently applied.)

An important change that I previously missed is Am 20, which allows the committee responsible to “appoint a rapporteur to follow the preparatory phase of a proposal”, potentially as soon as a “proposal is listed in the Commission Work Programme.” The catch with this is, of course, that the reforms are trying to resolve frequent turf wars between committees – but only once a proposal arrives with Parliament? So the idea that committees might start to claim territory before the Commission actually completes its proposal is interesting to say the least.

Finally, amendment 71 concerning time allocation between political groups disappeared from the committee report without a recorded vote or explanation. I haven’t explored this further.