scholarly journals Special legislative procedure in EU law: areas of regulation and specifics of interinstitutional cooperation

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
I. V. Astapenko ◽  
N. N. Mazaeva

The article is devoted to the issue of cooperation between the institutions of the European Union in the process of adopting legal acts within the framework of a special legislative procedure. Authors analyzed the scope of application of special legislative procedure and ordinary legislative procedure in the EU. It was revealed that the adoption of acts in accordance with one or another type of legislative procedure reflects the dual nature of the European Union, which contains both supranational and interstate principles of legal regulation of various spheres of public relations. The main types of special legislative procedure (consultation, approval) are considered, within the framework of which, in practice, there is intense inter-institutional interaction in the process of developing the final text of the draft act, including through informal consultations and other procedures not directly enshrined in the EU primary law. Although the Council continues to dominate in most cases of the use of special legislative procedure, Parliament nevertheless has relatively wide opportunities to influence the position of the Council. De facto, the expansion of the Parliaments powers within the framework of a special legislative procedure is facilitated by both the position of the EU Court, expressed in a number of decisions on specific cases, and the increased degree of Parliaments influence on the activities of the Commission (which, as a general rule, has the right to initiate legislation), enshrined in the provisions of the constituent agreements.

Author(s):  
Robert Schütze

This chapter examines how the European Union institutions cooperate in the creation of European legislation. Unlike many national legal orders, the EU Treaties expressly distinguish two types of legislative procedures: an ordinary legislative procedure and special legislative procedures. According to the ordinary legislative procedure, the European Parliament and the Council act as co-legislators with symmetric procedural rights. European legislation is here seen as the product of a ‘joint adoption’ by both institutions. Meanwhile, the defining characteristic of the special legislative procedures is that they abandon the institutional equality between the Parliament and the Council. The chapter then looks at the principle of subsidiarity—an EU constitutional principle that was designed to prevent the EU legislator from exercising its competences where the Member States would be able to achieve the desirable social aim themselves. It also considers the procedure for the conclusion of international agreements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-180
Author(s):  
Tiago Sérgio Cabral

This paper aims to clarify how the legislative procedure works in the European Union (hereinafter, EU), both in the Treaties and in practice. We will study the rules governing the ordinary legislative procedure and the special consent and consultation procedures. Advantages and shortcomings of each of the procedures will also be addressed, including the main actors and the level of transparency and accountability. Within the ordinary legislative procedure, we will assess whether the informal trilogues should be reformed to be more accessible to the European citizen. Lastly, our paper will also address the use of passerelle clauses and citizen’s and how they can affect the lawmaking procedure in the EU


2013 ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Orsolya Nagy

The use of renewable energies has a long past, even though its share of the total energy use is rather low in European terms. However, the tendencies are definitely favourable which is further strengthened by the dedication of the European Union to sustainable development and combat against climate change. The European Union is on the right track in achieving its goal which is to be able to cover 20% its energy need from renewable energy resources by 2020. The increased use of wind, solar, water, tidal, geothermal and biomass energy will reduce the energy import dependence of the European Union and it will stimulate innovation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
Barbara Pavlíková

Abstract The contribution deals with the Slovak and the EU legal regulation of tobacco and tobacco products. Its primary purpose is to point out the Slovak and European legal acts which constitute the main regulatory instruments in this field using the method of analysis and synthesis. Rules of production, distribution and conditions of use of tobacco and products thereof are in the Slovak Republic contained mainly in two acts - the Act No 335/2011 Coll. on Tobacco Products and the Act No 377/2004 Coll. on the Protection of Non-smokers, as well as in special Decree No 212/2012 Coll., regulating tobacco products. Regulation of excise duty on tobacco products can be found in the Act with the same name - Act No 106/2004 Coll.. Another objective of the paper is also to draw attention to the amendment of Act on Protection of Non-smokers which entered into force on 1 July 2013. The European Union struggles with the negative consequences of smoking at the supranacional level and its institutions - the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU - are already for several years adopting legal acts to facilitate uniformity and easier interpretation of European law also in the field of legal regulation of tobacco and tobacco products. The predominant part of the existing legislation deals with the approximation of laws in areas that are closely related to the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products, but also to the collection of taxes from these products.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Maas

Abstract This article surveys some general lessons to be drawn from the tension between the promise of citizenship to deliver equality and the particularistic drive to maintain diversity. Democratic states tend to guarantee free movement within their territory to all citizens, as a core right of citizenship. Similarly, the European Union guarantees (as the core right of EU citizenship) the right to live and the right to work anywhere within EU territory to EU citizens and members of their families. Such rights reflect the project of equality and undifferentiated individual rights for all who have the status of citizen. But they are not uncontested. Within the EU, several member states propose to reintroduce border controls and to restrict access for EU citizens who claim social assistance. Similar tensions and attempts to discourage freedom of movement also exist in other political systems, and the article gives examples from the United States and Canada. Within democratic states, particularly federal ones and others where decentralized jurisdictions are responsible for social welfare provision, it thus appears that some citizens can be more equal than others. Principles such as benefit portability, prohibition of residence requirements for access to programs or rights, and mutual recognition of qualifications and credentials facilitate the free flow of people within states and reflect the attempt to eliminate internal borders. Within the growing field of migration studies, most research focuses on international migration, movement between states, involving international borders. But migration across jurisdictional boundaries within states is at least as important as international migration. Within the European Union, free movement often means changing residence across jurisdictional boundaries within a political system with a common citizenship, even though EU citizenship is not traditional national citizenship. The EU is thus a good test of the tension between the equality promised by common citizenship and the diversity institutionalized by borders.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212110364
Author(s):  
Adam Kirpsza

The article explores factors affecting the duration of the co-decision procedure (currently the ordinary legislative procedure), the main procedure for adopting legislation in the European Union. Drawing from rational choice institutionalism, it expects the speed of co-decision to be determined by three attributes: the impatience of legislators, issue linkage and the characteristics of Council and European Parliament negotiators ( relais actors). The hypotheses are tested using survival analysis on a dataset of 599 controversial legislative acts submitted and enacted under co-decision between 1999 and 2009. The results show that co-decision proposals are decided faster when they are urgent, negotiated prior to the European Parliament elections and concluded through single proposal logrolls. By contrast, multi-proposal packages and the ideological distance between relais actors prolong decision-making. Overall, the article contributes to the literature by showing that the impatience of legislators, package deals and the properties of negotiators are relevant drivers of co-decision duration.


2020 ◽  
pp. 121-153
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Homewood

This chapter discusses the law on the free movement of persons in the EU. Free movement of persons is one of the four ‘freedoms’ of the internal market. Original EC Treaty provisions granted free movement rights to the economically active—workers, persons exercising the right of establishment, and persons providing services in another Member State. The Treaty also set out the general principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality, ‘within the scope of application of the Treaty’. All these provisions are now contained in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Early secondary legislation granted rights to family members, students, retired persons, and persons of independent means. The Citizenship Directive 2004/38 consolidated this legislation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Saila Heinikoski

This article discusses how the right to free movement within the European Union is presented as a matter of obligation, a duty of the other EU member states, in the discourse of Romanian Presidents and Prime Ministers (2005–2015). An examination of speeches and other statements from these politicians illuminates Romanian political reactions during the period when Romania became an EU member state, and reflects perceptions of Europeanness and European agreements. These issues take on an additional contemporary significance in the context of the Brexit negotiations, and they also add to the broader debate on whether EU norms and obligations are seen as being both just and equally applied. By analysing different types of argumentative topoi, I examine the deontological (obligation-based) argumentation employed in the free movement context. Furthermore, I examine to what extent these arguments are invoked in support of the right to free movement and who this right applies to. I argue that for Romanian politicians, deontological free movement arguments are connected to other states’ compliance with European treaties and to demands for equal application of European rules without discrimination, or the delegation of responsibility to others. This manifested itself most frequently in the calls for the EU and its member states to do their duty by treating Romanians equally to other EU citizens.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mor Sobol

The European Union (EU) and China are on a quest to establish themselves as global actors. Still, both powers first need to create a stable neighbourhood that will not threaten their interests. Consequently, in 2004 the EU launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), while in 2013 China’s Peripheral Diplomacy (CPD) was introduced. Against this background, this article aims to conduct a comparative analysis of both initiatives. Specifically, as there is a wide agreement that the ENP has failed to generate any impact on the EU’s periphery, the research question is: To what extent could the CPD transcend the problems of its European counterpart? The article posits that both policies are rather similar in their inability to strike the right balance between protecting core interests and acknowledging the neighbours’ needs. Thus, it is likely that the CPD, just like the ENP, will remain a policy with big potential but without effective results.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Anna Doliwa-Klepacka

Abstract The principle of multilingualism in the legal system of the European Union is one of the key elements that guarantees, among others, the right of access to EU legislation. It is particularly important not only in the sphere of the direct application of the EU law, but also in the sphere of access to information during the lawmaking procedures at the EU institutions. A special case is, however, a stage of preparing a draft legislative proposal by the European Commission. The EU member states agree to limit the use of official language version to the working documents for “working” languages of the Commission, i.e. English, French and German. In practice, English and French are the most widely used languages for the working arrangements in the preparation of the draft legislation, mainly due to costs of the necessary translations and an effectiveness of this stage. This article presents a course of the stage of the drafting a legislative proposal by the Commission and illustrates the scope of work partly exempted from the obligation to ensure the full application of the principle of equivalence of all the official languages of the European Union.


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