REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the working of committees during 2019

In accordance with Article 10(2) of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers (the ‘Comitology Regulation’), the Commission hereby presents the annual report on the working of committees for 2019.

This report gives an overview of developments in the comitology system in 2019 and a summary of the committees’ activities. It is accompanied by a staff working document containing detailed statistics on the work of the individual committees.

1.Overview of developments in the comitology system in 2019

1.1.General developments

All comitology procedures provided for in the ‘old’ Comitology Decision , with the exception of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, were automatically adapted by the Comitology Regulation to the procedures provided for in that Regulation.

In 2019, the comitology committees were therefore operating under the procedures set out in the Comitology Regulation, i.e. advisory (Article 4) and examination (Article 5) as well as under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny set out in Article 5a of the Comitology Decision.

As regards the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making of 13 April 2016 recalls, in its point 27, the need to align acts still refering to this procedure to the new legal framework introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.

In 2019, the alignment of 64 basic acts providing for the regulatory procedure with scrutiny to delegated and in a few cases to implementing acts was agreed . After this partial agreement on the Commission’s proposal, interinstitutional negotiations continue on the alignment of the remaining basic acts included in the general Commission proposal and in the Commission proposal concerning the area of justice.

Furthermore, negotiations between the three institutions were successfully concluded in 2019 on non-binding criteria for the application of Articles 290 and 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, so the delineation between delegated and implementing acts. The final text of the delineation criteria was published in the Official Journal on 3 July 2019 .

Negotiations are still ongoing on a Commission proposal from 14 February 2017 on a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Comitology Regulation (EU) No 182/2011. This proposal puts forward a number of targeted changes to the functioning of the appeal committee to address no opinion situations in sensitive areas.

In its Communication ‘Better regulation for better results’ of May 2015, the Commission made the commitment that draft texts for delegated acts and drafts for important implementing acts will be made public for a four weeks feedback period, allowing stakeholders to submit comments. In 2019, 93 such draft acts were published for public feedback on the Commission’s ‘Have your say’ website.

2.Overview of activities

2.1.Number of committees and meetings

It is important to distinguish between the comitology committees on the one hand, and other entities, in particular ‘expert groups’ created by the Commission itself, on the other. The latter provide expertise to the Commission in preparing and implementing policy as well as delegated acts, whereas comitology committees assist the Commission in the exercise of the implementing powers that have been conferred upon it by basic legal acts. This report focuses exclusively on comitology committees. The number of active comitology committees in the period 1 January to 31 December 2019 was calculated by sector of activity (see Table I). The figures for the previous year (on 31 December 2018) are also given for purposes of comparison. Sections and configurations are not counted separately as these belong to a parent committee.

TABLE I — Total number of committees