Legislative procedures in European Union

 As the institutions have developed, the European Parliament has seen its powers increase: the Council now shares its legislative powers with Parliament for the adoption of general legal instruments of a binding nature (regulations and directives). The decision-making procedures comprise the consultation procedure, the cooperation procedure, the co-decision procedure and the assent procedure.

Assent procedure (Code AVC) 
The assent procedure, which was introduced by the Single European Act, gives Parliament the possibility of expressing its approval or disapproval of certain Council instruments. There are certain matters on which the Council cannot legislate unless Parliament gives its consent by an absolute majority of its members. The assent procedure, which represents as it were a right of veto for Parliament, was originally intended to apply only to the conclusion of association agreements and the examination of applications to join the European Community. The areas in which the assent procedure applies at present are as follows:

enhanced cooperation (Article 11(2)),
specific tasks of the ECB (Article 105(6)),
amending the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (Article 107(5)),
Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund (Article 161),
uniform procedure for elections (Article 190(4)),
certain international agreements (Article 300(3)),
violation of human rights (Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union),
accession of new Member States (Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union). 

Co-decision procedure (Code COD) 
The co-decision procedure, which was introduced by the Treaty on European Union, was conceived as an extension of the cooperation procedure. However, while in the latter the Council can, acting unanimously, disregard the opinion of Parliament, in the co-decision procedure there is no such possibility: in the event of disagreement, a conciliation committee made up of representatives of the Council and of Parliament has to arrive at a text that is acceptable to the two institutions. The co-decision procedure now puts these two institutions on an equal footing in the legislative roles. Under this procedure, the Council cannot adopt a common position if the process of conciliation with Parliament fails. If no agreement is reached, the legislative process is liable to be broken off.

Co-decision has become by far the most important procedure in legislative practice.

It concerns the following areas:

non-discrimination on grounds of nationality (Article 12),
combating discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (Article 13(2)),
freedom of movement and of residence (Article 18(2)),
free movement of workers (Article 40),
social security for migrant workers (Article 42),
right of establishment (Article 44(1), Article 46(2), Article 47(1) and (2)),
visas, asylum, immigration and other policies relating to the free movement of persons (Article 67(4) and (5)),
transport (Article 71(1), Article 80),
the internal market (Article 95),
employment (Article 129),
customs cooperation (Article 135),
social policy (Article 137(2)),
equal opportunities and equal treatment (Article 141(3)),
implementing decisions relating to the European Social Fund (Article 148),
education (Article 149(4)),
culture (except recommendations) (Article 151(5)),
public health (Article 152(4)),
consumer protection (Article 153(4)),
trans-European networks (Article 156),
industry (Article 157(3)),
economic and social cohesion(Article 159),
European Regional Development Fund (Article 162),
research and technological development (Article 166(1), Article 172),
vocational training (Article 150(4)),
the environment (Article 175(1) and (3)),
development cooperation (Article 179(1)),
political parties at European level (Article 191),
access to the institutions’ documents (Article 255(2)),
fraud (Article 280),
statistics (Article 285),
establishing a supervisory body for data protection (Article 286). 

Cooperation procedure (Code SYN) 
The cooperation procedure was introduced by the Single European Act to step up the role of the European Parliament compared with the consultation procedure. Parliament can make amendments to a Council common position but, unlike the co-decision procedure, the final decision lies with the Council alone.

The cooperation procedure applies exclusively to the following areas:

rules for the multilateral surveillance procedure (Article 99(5)),
prohibition on privileged access to financial institutions (Article 102(2)),
prohibition on assuming liability for Member States’ commitments (Article 103(2)),
measures to harmonise the circulation of coins (Article 106(2)).
Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, all other areas previously subject to this procedure have come under the co-decision procedure. 

Consultation procedure (Code CNS) Since the introduction of the cooperation procedure and the co-decision procedure, the importance of the consultation procedure has steadily declined. The characteristic feature of the consultation procedure is a division of tasks between the Commission and the Council that can be summed up in the phrase ‘the Commission proposes, the Council disposes’. However, before the Council can take a decision, certain stages have to be completed, in the course of which, besides the Commission and the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions may also have their say, depending on the subject of the regulations in question.

The consultation procedure now applies only to cases that are not expressly subject to the cooperation or co-decision procedures.

Nota AvocatNet: Numai legislatia europeana din editia printata a Jurnalului Oficial al Uniunii Europene poate fi considerata autentica