Lintner, Ramela; Vaccari, Beatrice --- "Comitology and the EP’s Scrutiny of Commission Implementing Acts:" [2007] ELECD 182; in Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn (eds), "The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union

Editor(s): Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426224

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Comitology and the EP’s Scrutiny of Commission Implementing Acts:

Author(s): Lintner, Ramela; Vaccari, Beatrice

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

9. Comitology and the EP's scrutiny of
Commission implementing acts: real
parliamentary control?
Pamela Lintner and Beatrice Vaccari*

INTRODUCTION

The idea that committees made up of unelected national officials ­
bureaucratic bodies ­ decide or at least influence the bulk of European
decisions1 raises democratic concerns. In the EU's unique institutional set-
up the power to adopt implementing acts upon delegation by the Council,
and the EP in case of co-decision, lies with the European Commission.
In this context, it is assisted and controlled by so-called `comitology
committees' composed of national representatives. Under the system
governed by the 1999 Comitology Decision it is up to the Council to decide
on the implementing measure proposed by the Commission in the case of
disagreement between a comitology committee and the Commission. The
European Parliament, on the other hand, from 1999, could only intervene in
the process by adopting a Resolution stating its [political and] legal concerns
via the so-called `right of scrutiny'. Its role has been reinforced recently with
the modification of the 1999 Decision adopted in 2006 (Council Decision
2006/512/CE of 17 July).
Neither Parliament nor the Commission disputed the establishment of
committees with purely advisory functions but both have ­ for different
reasons ­ claimed that committee procedures with a possible direct impact
on the policy outcome would influence the institutional balance set up in
the Treaty. Even though the legitimacy of the committees itself was already
confirmed by the European Court of Justice in the 1970s, ...