The decisions of the European Union (EU) affect the day-to-day life of more than 500 million European citizens. So, how does the Union take these decisions? In reality, there is no single method of taking decisions at European (EU) level. The procedures vary depending on the domains concerned.
There are two main instances:
- decision-making in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure ;
- decision-making in accordance with the special legislative procedures.
Since the Treaty of Lisbon came into force, numerous areas of competence of the EU have fallen within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure: the citizens' initiative, legal migration, judicial collaboration in criminal matters, Eurojust, Europol, the Services of general economic interest, the common organisation of the agricultural markets, etc. The extension of the ordinary legislative procedure to all of these domains has the consequence that it now applies to the large majority of decisions taken by the EU.
Other types of procedure apply to a limited number of domains such as defence, taxation, the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), the European Public Ministry or the rules governing languages and the jurisdiction of the Court as regards intellectual property rights. For each of these domains, so-called special decision-making procedures are applied.
However, given the more exceptional nature of the implementation of such procedures, we will only discuss the so-called ordinary legislative procedure here.
The ordinary legislative procedure
A draft legislative act is proposed by the Commission, after consultation on the subject. Next, the Parliament and the Council debate it and decide whether or not to adopt it.
At the same time, the draft legislative act is sent to the National Parliaments. Each house of the National Parliaments has eight weeks within which to submit an opinion on the conformity of this draft legislative act with the principle of subsidiarity. The European institutions are obliged to take this opinion into account.
If a legislative act is adopted, its implementation depends on the national, regional and local authorities of the Member States. Finally, the Commission ensures the proper implementation of the European legislative acts.
The Court of Justice ensures that the national authorities interpret the Treaties correctly and that they effectively transpose them into their respective legal systems. So, the Court has the power to verify the legality of the legislative acts and to repeal them if necessary.
The European Council does not have any legislative function, strictly speaking. However, it defines the guidelines and the general policy priorities of the Union.
Among the European legislative acts are regulations, directives and decisions. The directives establish objectives common to all Member States but leave it up to each State to choose the means of achieving them. On the other hand, the regulations are directly applicable throughout the EU. Finally, the decisions are directly applicable but only in clearly defined cases.
There are also other types of European legal act, the opinions and the recommendations, which, however, do not bind their recipients.