Report from the Commission on the working of committees during 2007 {SEC(2008) 3018}
Date: 2008-12-15
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: European Commission, activity report, comitology, committee (EU), institutional reform, legislative-executive relations, powers of the institutions (EU)

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 15.12.2008 
COM(2008) 844 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 

ON THE WORKING OF COMMITTEES DURING 2007 

{SEC(2008) 3018} 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 

ON THE WORKING OF COMMITTEES DURING 2007 

In  accordance  with  Article  7(4)  of  Council  Decision  1999/468/EC  of  28  June  1999,  the 
Commission  hereby  presents  the  annual  report  on  the  working  of  committees  for  2007.  It 
contains  general  comments  on  development  of  the  comitology  system,  an  overview  of 
committees’  activities  and  an  Annex  with  detailed  statistics  on  the  individual  committees, 
classified on the basis of the individual Commission departments concerned1. The Annex also 
provides  comments  on  changes  in  the  number  of  committees  and  on  exceptional  events 
relating to specific draft measures, such as unfavourable opinions and referrals to the Council.  

1. 

1.1. 

GENERAL COMMENTS ON DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMITOLOGY SYSTEM 

Implementation  of  the  reform  of  the  comitology  procedure  (Council  Decision 
2006/512/EC amending Council Decision 1999/468/EC) 

1.1.1.  Alignment 

Alignment of existing basic acts with new committee procedures is a familiar exercise, as it 
has  been  carried  out  before  for  Council  Decision  1999/468/EC.  The  four  alignment 
regulations adopted in 20032 amended all existing basic legal acts, one by one, but only their 
committee procedures, without any other changes to their substance. At that time alignment 
consisted  of  eliminating  the  variants  for  each  procedure  (management,  regulatory  and 
safeguard). Consequently, the changes were purely automatic, which facilitated approval by 
the legislator.  

By contrast, the criteria set out in the regulatory procedure with scrutiny (PRAC) introduced 
by  Council  Decision  2006/512/EC  are  mandatory.  This  means  that  whenever  the  conditions 
apply,  the  PRAC  has  to  be  provided  for.  Otherwise,  the  basic  legal  act  adopted  is  illegal. 
Therefore, each case must be examined on its own merits to decide whether the conditions for 
the new procedure to apply are fulfilled. 
In a joint statement3, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed on a 
list  of  basic  legal  acts  that  must  be  brought  into  line  with  the  PRAC  urgently.  These  26 
proposals for priority alignment were adopted by the Commission on 22 December 2006.  

All other basic legal acts adopted under the co-decision procedure which are not listed in the 
joint  statement  of  July  2006  also  have  to  be  aligned.  The  Commission  committed  itself  to 
reviewing  all  existing  legal  acts  and,  whenever  necessary,  to  making  relevant  proposals  for 
their alignment before the end of 2007.  

In  view  of  the  number  of  acts  concerned,  the screening  exercise  started  in  January  2007.  A 
total of 225 acts were identified as needing to be aligned. 

In order to avoid a piecemeal approach, which would have been unworkable with some 200 
proposals under review and would have led to major inconsistencies, the Commission decided 

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3 

The Annex is presented as a separate Commission staff working paper. 
Council Regulation (EC) No 806/2003 of 14 April 2003, Council Regulation (EC) No 807/2003 of 14 
April  2003,  Council  Regulation  (EC)  No  1105/2003  of  26  May  2003  and  Regulation  (EC)  No 
1882/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 September 2003. 
OJ C 255, 21.10.2006, p. 1. 

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to  submit  “omnibus  proposals”  instead  of  200  individual  proposals.  This  could  help  the  EP 
and the Council to analyse the different cases in a more comprehensive and consistent way. 

The Commission duly adopted: 

•  On 23 November 2007, the Communication to the EP and the Council which explains the 
purposes of the general alignment and the method followed to perform this exercise. This 
Communication lists all the basic acts concerned by the general alignment. 

•  Also on 23 November 2007, the first “omnibus proposal” which covers 59 basic acts. 

•  On  19  December  2007,  two  other  “omnibus  proposals”,  one  covering  47  basic  acts,  the 
other  concerning  4  basic  acts  adopted  in  application  of  Title  IV  of  Part  III  of  the  Treaty 
establishing  the  European  Community,  in  order  to  take  account  of  the  special  provisions 
applying to Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland in this field. 

•  The fourth and last “omnibus” proposal (covering 46 acts) was adopted in February2008. 

1.1.2.  Revision of the bilateral agreement 

The October 2000 bilateral (Commission/European Parliament) agreement on procedures for 
implementing  the  Comitology  Decision  had  to  be  revised  to  bring  it  into  line  with  the 
statement  on  transparency/updated  register  and  with  the  new  regulatory  procedure  with 
scrutiny and, whenever possible, to streamline current arrangements. 

Negotiations took place in 2007 and compromise solutions were rapidly found on most of the 
unsettled issues. The outcomes of the negotiations were due to be formally endorsed by both 
institutions during the first half of 2008. The revised agreement was expected to entered into 
force on 3 June 2008 . 

1.1.3.  Comitology and transparency: the register and repository for comitology documents 

In  a  statement  regarding  Article  7(3)  of  Council  Decision  1999/468/EC  (transparency 
statement)4
 , the Commission committed itself to improving the comitology register in order 
to  help  the  European  Parliament  to  follow  the  different  stages  and  timetable  of  each 
comitology  procedure  better  and  to  distinguish  between  the  various  types  of  documents 
received. 

Therefore,  to  accompany  the  reform  of  Council  Decision  1999/468/EC,  the  Commission 
developed  a  new  and  much  improved  comitology  register  to  give  the  European  Parliament 
and  the  general  public  more  transparent  and  coherent  access  to  the  documents  and  other 
relevant information. The new register was put into operation on 1 April 20085. 

1.2. 

Development of case law 

In its judgment of 13 September 2007 (Case C-443/05, Common Market Fertilizers SA), the 
Court  of  Justice  confirmed  the  “Forest  Focus”  case  law  (see  summary  of  Case  C-122/04, 
judgment of 23 February 2006, in the 2006 report). The Court underlined that it is clear from 
the wording of Article 2 of the Comitology Decision that the criteria relating to the choice of 
committee procedure are not binding, which is expressly confirmed in the fifth recital in the 
preamble  to  the  same  Decision.  Without  prejudice  to  the  possibility  of  recourse  to  the 
advisory procedure, measures of general scope may therefore come under either point (a) or 
point (b) of Article 2 of the Comitology Decision. They may be covered by the management 
procedure  if  they  are  closely  linked  to  measures  of  individual  application  and  within  a 

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OJ C 171, 22.7.2006, p. 21. 
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regcomitology/index_en.htm.  

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framework  sufficiently  developed  by  the  basic  instrument  itself.  By  contrast,  again  without 
prejudice  to  the  possibility  of  recourse  to  the  advisory  procedure,  measures  of  individual 
application may be covered only by point (a) of Article 2 of the Comitology Decision. 

In  this  case,  the  reference  to  the  committee  procedure  in  Article  239  of  the  Customs  Code 
implies  use  of  the  regulatory  procedure,  which  applies  to  measures  of  general  scope.  The 
Court stated that Article 239 of the Customs Code imposes no obligation on the Commission 
to use any particular procedure to take individual decisions – in this case, actual consideration 
of  applications  for  repayment  or  remission  of  customs  duties.  Therefore,  the  appellant 
(Common  Market  Fertilizers  SA)  was  wrong  to  challenge  the  legality  of  the  individual 
decisions taken by the Commission without using any particular comitology procedure. 

In its judgment of 23 October 2007 (C-403/5, “Philippines Border Management Project”), the 
Court annulled the Commission Decision approving a project relating to border security in the 
Philippines  to  be  financed  by  line  19 10 02  of  the  general  budget  of  the  European 
Communities.  The  Court  ruled  that,  since  the  contested  decision  pursues  an  objective 
concerning  the  fight  against  terrorism  and  international  crime,  which  falls  outside  the 
framework  of  the  development  cooperation  policy  pursued  by  Regulation  No 443/92,  the 
Commission had exceeded the implementing powers conferred by the Council in Article 15 of 
that Regulation. 

2. 

2.1 

OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES 

Number of committees  

It is important to draw a distinction 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  work  on  preparing  and  implementing  policy,  whereas  the  comitology  committees 
are involved in implementing legislative acts. This report focuses exclusively on comitology 
committees. The number of comitology committees on 31 December 2007 was calculated by 
sector of activity (see Table I). The figures for the previous year (on 31 December 2006) are 
also given for comparison. 

TABLE I – TOTAL NUMBER OF COMMITTEES 

Policy sector  

Enterprise and Industry (ENTR) 

Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities (EMPL) 

Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) 

Transport and Energy (TREN) 

Environment (ENV) 

Research (RTD) 

Information Society and Media (INFSO) 

Fisheries and Maritime Affairs (MARE) 

Internal Market (MARKT) 

Regional Policy (REGIO) 

Taxation and Customs Union (TAXUD) 

Education and Culture (EAC) 

Health and Consumer Protection (SANCO) 

Justice, Liberty and Security (JLS) 

2006 

2007 

33 

8 

30 

36 

35 

3 

12 

4 

13 

3 

10 

12 

16 

15 

33 

4 

31 

35 

35 

5 

9 

4 

13 

1 

11 

6 

17 

21 

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External Relations (RELEX) 

Trade (TRADE) 

Enlargement (ELARG) 

EuropeAid (AIDCO) 

Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) 

Statistics (ESTAT) 

Budget (BUDG) 

Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) 

Information Technology (DIGIT) 

TOTAL 

4 

12 

4 

15 

1 

8 

2 

1 

0 

3 

12 

3 

9 

1 

9 

2 

1 

1 

277 

264 

2.2 

Number of opinions and implementing measures 

Like  previous  reports,  this  report  gives  global  figures  on  formal  opinions  delivered  by  the 
committees and the subsequent implementing measures (i.e. legal acts or administrative and 
financing decisions) adopted by the Commission. These figures quantify the tangible “output” 
of the committees (see Table II). The total number of opinions delivered by the committees in 
2007  was  2613  (compared  with  2 933  in  2006);  the  number  of  implementing  measures 
adopted by the Commission was 2522 (compared with 2 862 in 2006).  

TABLE II – NUMBER OF OPINIONS AND IMPLEMENTING MEASURES (2007) 

Opinions 

Implementing 
measures 

Opinions 

Implementing 
measures 

ENTR 

EMPL 

AGRI 

TREN  

ENV 

RTD 

INFSO 

MARE 

MARKT 

REGIO 

TAXUD 

EAC 

292 

14 

963 

41 

65 

57 

37 

30 

11 

13 

74 

87 

269 

SANCO  

14 

JLS  

963 

RELEX  

TRADE  

ELARG  

AIDCO  

ECHO  

ESTAT  

BUDG  

OLAF  

DIGIT 

39 

62 

57 

36 

29 

8 

13 

63 

73 

343 

27 

4 

10 

86 

388 

37 

29 

3 

0 

2 

331 

23 

4 

8 

83 

388 

37 

18 

3 

0 

1 

The large number of implementing measures adopted in certain policy sectors – Agriculture 
(963),  EuropeAid  (388),  Health  and  Consumer  Protection  (331),  Enterprise(269),  Research 
(57)  and  Information  Society  (36)  –  again  reflects  the  intensity  of  work  delegated  to  the 

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Commission in these areas via the comitology procedures6. Compared with the previous year, 
a decrease in Agriculture (963 implementing measures in 2007, compared with 1 576 in 2006) 
and Research (57 in 2007, compared with 212 in 2006). 

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Note that the sheer number of measures adopted as such gives no indication of the political, economic 
or financial importance of the decisions taken. 

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