COMITOLOGY: PARLIAMENT TO FORM SPECIAL TEAM TO WIN PARITY WITH COUNCIL.

Changes.

The problem stems from proposed changes to the EU's comitology rules under which the power to propose and approve secondary legislation, deriving from primary law, is delegated to the Commission working with different types of committee made up of member states' representatives. The existing rules, dating from 1987, were revised in 1999 and the Commission tabled a new proposal to amend this decision in 2004. However, the 1999 changes were not implemented because at the time the negotiations on the Constitution were focusing on the same issues of how to deal with the extension of co-decision (which gives joint legislative powers to Council and the Parliament).

With the halt to the ratification process in the wake of the No votes in France and the Netherlands, the need for an agreed solution among the three institutions has moved up the political agenda and the UK Presidency is currently chairing a working group within the Council to examine possible changes. The debate has been given extra momentum by the ongoing differences between the European Parliament and Council over financial services legislation (where, under the so-called Lamfalussy process, MEPs have the right to review legislation after two years) and annoyance, mainly in the EP's Environment Committee, that the Commission had failed to inform them of 50 pieces of legislation adopted by committee procedure.

Call back.

Richard Corbett prepared a report on the changes in 2003 and the Commission took on board some of the EP's views but stopped short of endorsing the Parliament's key demand for parity with the Council on requesting the Commission to reconsider legislative proposals the EP feels exceed the scope of the original...