A4-0361/96

Resolution on the Commission report pursuant to Article 189b(8) of the EC Treaty on the scope of the codecision procedure (SEC(96)1225 - C4-0464/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission report pursuant to Article 189b(8) of the EC Treaty on the scope of the codecision procedure (SEC(96)1225 - C4- 0464/96),

- having regard to its resolution of 18 April 1991 on the nature of Community acts ((OJ C 129, 20.5.1991, p. 136.)),

- having regard to its resolutions of 17 May 1995 on the functioning of the Treaty on European Union with a view to the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference - Implementation and development of the Union ((OJ C 151, 19.6.1995, p. 56.)) and 13 March 1996 embodying (i) Parliament's opinion on the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference and (ii) an evaluation of the work of the Reflection Group and a definition of the political priorities of the European Parliament with a view to the Intergovernmental Conference ((OJ C 96, 1.4.1996, p. 77.)),

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Institutional Affairs and the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy (A4-0361/96)

A. restating the need to extend codecision to all legislative acts, in order:

- to democratize the European legislative process, and

- to simplify European legislative procedures by abolishing the cooperation procedure and reducing the scope for futile wrangling over legal bases,

B. whereas extending codecision to all legislative acts raises the problem of defining such acts,

C. noting that this problem might be resolved by the establishment of a hierarchy of Community legal acts and that Declaration No 16 on the hierarchy of Community acts, annexed to the Treaty on European Union, stipulates that the Intergovernmental Conference 'will examine to what extent it might be possible to review the classification of Community acts with a view to establishing an appropriate hierarchy between the different categories of act¨,

D. restating its view that extending qualified majority voting to all legislative acts must be one of the IGC's objectives with a view to ensuring the efficiency of an enlarged EU, but stressing that extending codecision to acts adopted by qualified majority would beg the question of defining a legislative act,

E. whereas extending codecision to all acts currently covered by the cooperation procedure would be a step forward but would still not include such politically important fields as citizenship, taxation, agricultural policy and some aspects of the environment,

F. whereas extending codecision on a case-by-case basis with no fixed criteria would produce a minimal compromise between the Member States and would be completely inconsistent,

G. whereas no approach which is based on case-by-case reasoning, and which would therefore remain empirical, will be in a position to rectify the serious problem of confusion and uncertainty that is affecting the Community legal order,

1. Adopts the following remarks on the Commission document:

2. General assessment

2.1. The Commission document, in proposing that codecision be extended to the entire legislative field and in seeking to establish precise criteria for defining that field, has the great merit of proposing what is to date, apart from the European Parliament's views, the only politically consistent approach to the problem.

2.2. The Commission document does, however, have three drawbacks:

- some of the criteria need sharper definition;

- the definition of the 'Law¨ is incomplete and needs amplification;

- the demarcation of the legislative field produced by applying the criteria is both haphazard and restrictive.

3. Grey areas

The criteria suggested by the Commission include a number of sizeable grey areas:

3.1. The criterion 'essential elements of Community action in a given area¨ appears to be highly subjective in terms of its form and the way in which it is currently applied, but, if better defined, it could be useful for defining the legislative field in precise instances concerning the impact and quality of legislation.

3.2. The same is true of the term 'technical area¨, which is not proposed as a specific criterion by the Commission but which it uses in practice as a negative criterion in determining the areas for which codecision procedure would be inappropriate, in Annex IV.

3.3. The concept of 'general in scope¨ needs to be more precisely defined in view of the number of inter-institutional disputes which have broken out. The term needs to be defined in distinction from those of 'individual measure¨ and 'administrative act¨.

4. What needs to be added

4.1. It has to be made clear that legislative acts are normative, programmatic or budgetary in nature ((For the latter category, that of finance laws, the use of codecision will call for special procedures.)). Any non-budgetary act in which amounts deemed necessary are entered and which therefore impinges on the conduct of the annual budgetary procedure must be recognized as legislative in nature.

4.2. The Commission document should include acts which, on its own criteria, are legislative in nature and at present are part of the third pillar. Governments would then no longer be able to evade any real parliamentary control at national or European level in especially sensitive fields involving human rights and civil liberties.

5. Unjustifiably restrictive application

If the criteria laid down by the Commission are applied, other areas and acts should be covered by codecision, in particular:

5.1. Citizenship

Article 8b(2): right of every Union citizen to vote and stand in European elections in the Member State in which he resides; municipal elections were mentioned in the Commission document and it is hard to see why European elections should be excluded.

Article 8e: meets the Commission criteria.

5.2. Competition

Article 87: being general rules for implementing the principles of the Treaty;

Article 92(3)(e): where there is currently no role for the European Parliament but which determines new categories of State aid regarded as compatible with the internal market.

Article 94: being general rules for implementing the principles of the Treaty in respect of State aid.

5.3. Visas

Article 100c: a distinction has to be drawn between the general rules, which are legislative acts, affect individual rights and must fall under codecision, and executive acts such as the drawing up or amendment of lists of the countries affected, which are not a matter for codecision.

5.4. Economic and Monetary Union

Articles 103(5), 104a(2) and 104b(2): codecision should apply here as the detailed rules for the multilateral surveillance procedure, for prohibiting privileged access and for the system of advances to the state are general rules and not 'technical¨ areas.

On the other hand Article 105a(2) could be transferred to the consultation procedure as part of this rearrangement.

5.5. Trans-European networks

All measures referred to in Article 129c (the current demarcation between codecision and non-codecision matters has no logical basis).

5.6. Industry

Article 130(3): these measures are 'general in scope¨ and cover a field which could greatly increase in importance in the future.

5.7. Research

Article 130i(3): this programme has turned out to go beyond strictly executive action. Codecision will therefore be required, but it might be preferable to delete this paragraph and group all the key decisions under paragraphs 1 and 2 of that Article;

Article 130j: being general rules for the implementation of the framework programme;

Article 130n.

5.8. Court of First Instance

Article 168a(2): as this is a general decision conferring new powers on the Court or changing its composition.

5.9. Action against fraud

Article 209a: if the current legal basis is strengthened as the European Parliament wishes.

5.10. Euratom Treaty

Various passages in this Treaty provide a legal basis for the adoption of acts having political significance. See Articles 7, 31, 47, 85, 96 etc. Most of them require qualified majority voting in the Council.

Other matters

5.11. In some fields the Treaty needs to be revised to distinguish between legislative and executive acts, in particular Article 43 on agricultural policy and Article 113 on commercial policy, which might be supplemented by an Article 113a relating to international agreements and an Article 113b for legislative measures.

5.12. There must also be enhanced democratic oversight at European level for certain acts and areas not coming directly under codecision. In the area of EMU, for instance, the strategic debates (broad lines of economic policies, etc.) must be subject to democratic oversight at European level, although without European Parliament involvement in executive decisions.

5.13. The expansion of the legislative field which will result from the future Treaty will have to be taken into account and lead to an extension of the areas covered by codecision procedure.

6. Conclusion

While the Commission has made a valuable contribution to the democratization of the European Union's legislative procedures, the omissions and grey areas in its document have to be pointed out, and especially the gulf between the criteria as laid down and the over-restrictive way it has applied them.

7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.