Fabian Bohnenberger

With attention focused on President von der Leyen’s tight confirmation vote next week, another important moment is sneaking up on us: From 18 July, the Commission will re-start sending delegated acts to the European Parliament and the Council, enabling them to exercise democratic control over the Commission’s implementation activities.

Why it matters: There is plenty of (new) EU law to implement and Commission officials have been busy over the last months drafting delegated acts to accomplish just that. From next Thursday, they can start to press “send” on these drafts, which starts the clock for Members of the European Parliament and Member State experts to scrutinise the Commission’s work – and, if they disagree, object – before the delegated acts enter into force.

1. Delegated acts held back because of the elections

The Commission stopped transmitting delegated acts and RPS measures (I explain delegated acts here, let’s not dwell on the others) to the Parliament and the Council on 15 March 2024. This reflects the agreement reached between the institutions, which you can read here.

The pause is necessary because during the election period the Parliament is not in a position to exercise democratic control.

From 18 July (10 July for RPS measures and 26 August for some types of delegated acts), the gates swing open again. This will unleash a set of delegated acts that the Commission prepared during the transition.

The Commission already provided a list of over 140 delegated acts and around 50 RPS measures that it intends to adopt until August. Some of these arrived with legislators before the elections, the remainder has been waiting for the starting gun this/next week. The list is here.

2. Delegated and implementing acts for new legislation

But these pre-notified acts are really just the wake-up call. A large amount of new legislation was passed just before the elections, which now needs to be implemented. Consequently, the Commission is working on many more delegated and implementing acts that will spell out the necessary detail to apply these new laws.

This means many more measures for Parliament and Council to scrutinise over the coming months. For example, the Net-Zero Industry Act enters into force next week. As the Commission’s flagship initiative to boost Europe’s manufacturing capacity of net-zero technologies (wind turbines, etc.), it will immediately require a delegated and an implementing act to spell out precisely which technologies will be covered. Before key parts of the law can be applied, it will also need three more implementing acts to specify other rules (e.g., on public procurement). Finally, another delegated and implementing act are needed to complement the legislation later – I won’t go into detail, you get the picture.

This means that, no matter what the new political priorities are, legislators will also be subject to a drumbeat of draft legal acts aimed at implementing existing laws. Navigating this coming wave of delegated (and implementing) acts – to say nothing of actually examining the texts within tight deadlines – will be a challenge for everyone.