COUNCIL OF MINISTERS: POSITIVE VIEW OF CO-DECISION PROCEDURE.

• Position: Brief Article

The Council explains that the huge increase in the number of issues being addressed by the co-decision procedure would have resulted in gridlock if there had not been a reduction in the proportion of issues dealt with by the Conciliation Committee as a result of a greater number of issues being settled in first and second reading. Tripartite meetings between the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission help smooth over the co-decision procedure although these meetings are not found in the Treaty or the Common Declaration of 4 May 1999 (see European Report No 2405). It was introduced by the Spanish Presidency in 1995, but the French Presidency and the Secretariat General do not want to formalise the system in order to preserve the pragmatic approach taken so far.25% of the proposals dealt with in co-decision over the last eighteen months went to conciliation, but only half of them were actually addressed by the Conciliation Committee (mainly politically sensitive issues such as the Water Directive or the railway package or questions surrounded by controversy in terms of funding such as the Socrates and Youth programmes). In total, 50%...