Ordinary legislative procedure
Ordinary legislative procedure
Co-decision is the general procedure in law making where the Commission proposes and the Council decides under a procedure giving growing influence to the European Parliament. 11
It is now called the ordinary legislative procedure; see Article 294 TFEU in the Lisbon Treaty for the formal procedure. In practice, most laws are adopted in secret trialogue meetings between the three institutions.
80 % of the laws are decided in one reading in so-called first reading agreements, see Trialogue meetings.
Previously the co-decision rule should be found in Article 251 TEC.
The procedure was called “co-decision” or the “conciliation procedure” because the European Parliament is allowed to propose amendments and to veto the proposed laws.
PROCEDURE
- The Commission has a monopoly in proposing all EU laws. The European Parliament and the national parliaments cannot propose European laws.
- The Council then decides on the proposals by a qualified majority and the European Parliament may propose amendments by a simple majority in the first reading.
- The European Parliament can veto a law or propose amendments in the eventual second reading by an absolute majority of its members.
- If the Council does not accept the proposal of the absolute majority of the members of Parliament, a Conciliation Committee is established.
- The results of the Conciliation Committee must be approved by a qualified majority in the Council and a simple majority in the European Parliament. Otherwise, the law is not adopted.
- The non-elected Commission has a strong role in legislation. They must approve the proposals for amendments from the Parliament if they shall have a chance of being adopted in the Council. If the Commission does not support an amendment, it can only be approved in the Council by unanimity amongst all 28 member states.
Links
Co-decision http://ec.europa.eu/codecision/index_en.htm
See also
Democracy, Number of EU laws
