EUROPEAN UNION: COUNCIL AND PARLIAMENT AGREE COMMITTEE PROCEDURE.

Summary:The EU's Council of Ministers and the European Parliament have reached an informal agreement on amending Decision 87/373/EEC on the powers conferred on the Commission concerning the so-called "comitology", or committee procedure. The General Affairs Council, meeting on June 21 in Luxembourg, adopted changes to the text currently applicable which were accepted by the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets meeting the same day in Brussels, to vote the necessary credits for these committees to function. But the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets issued a political statement inviting the Council to negotiate an Inter-Institutional Agreement on comitology.

There are currently some 300 EU consultative management or regulatory committees. The regulatory committees, where the representatives of the European Union sit, were always treated cautiously by the European Parliament because their establishment is linked to he entry into force of a Directive or a Regulation they monitor and on which they vote amendments, on a proposal from the Commission. The Parliament says this procedure is tantamount to amending EU legislation without giving the Euro-MPs a vote in the matter. A declaration annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty made provisions to amend the decision of July 13, 1987 which covers the committee procedure, which stems from the implementation of Article 202 of the EU Treaty. The European Commission presented its proposal for revision in June 1998. The Parliament said in its opinion of September 1998 this was insufficient and requested the removal of regulatory committees. For a long time the Council of Ministers was opposed to any change in the system. Finally, negotiations got under way under...