INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL GUEGUEN, PROFESSOR OF COMITOLOGY AT COLLEGE OF EUROPE (*) : A CRITICAL LOOK AT NEW COMITOLOGY RULES.

Daniel Gueguen, the president of PACT European Affairs, tells Rory Watson why he is critical of the new comitology procedures introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.

It appears that it is only now, more than two years after the Lisbon Treaty came into force, that the scale of the changes it introduced are being appreciated. How do you explain this?

The member states did not fully comprehend what they were signing. Initially in Brussels, everyone believed that Parliament had come out the winner on the new treaty. Opinions have since changed. Everyone has had time to measure the advantages the Commission is drawing from treaty Articles 290 and 291 on comitology.

Can one still speak of comitology in the strict sense of the term?

The word no longer exists. The Union has a talent for complicating everything: we were familiar with comitology, but now we have to speak of implementing acts and delegated acts. In the same vein, co-decision becomes the ordinary legislative procedure'. Lisbon was sold to the public opinion as a simplified treaty' but in fact it introduces tremendous legal complexity. It multiplies the number of procedures, exceptions and...