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The Lisbon Treaty changed the system of delegating executive powers to the European Commission: it introduced the delegated acts system as an alternative to comitology, which continues to exist in parallel. This new system allocates veto power to the European Parliament and the Council, in which Member State expert groups are consulted without having a formal vote. The Council fears that the absence of formal voting will tempt the Commission to ignore Member State input in the expert groups. This article investigates to what degree this fear is justified. To what degree do formal voting rights affect the consultation of Member State experts? On the basis of interviews with Member State experts who participate both in expert groups as well as in comitology committees, we demonstrate how consultation patterns differ between the two settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 18 of March 2014, the Court of Justice delivered its judgment in the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) fees case,1 the first case dealing with the problematic distinction, in practice, between delegated acts under Article 290 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and implementing acts under Article 291 TFEU. The significance of this case should be searched for in the fundamental changes brought to the hierarchy of norms and the EU's revamped arsenal of acts after the Lisbon Treaty. These changes will first be recalled before presenting the case itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lisbon Treaty reform provided an important innovation in the EU regulatory activity by differentiating between the legislative delegation (art. 290 TFEU) and the executive delegation (art. 291 TFEU). In so doing, the central role of the European Commission in the Comitology procedures as well as the power of the European Parliament and the Council to control its executive powers have been modified. The new 2011 Comitology Regulation aimed at creating a more intelligible and transparent committees' system where the EC is expected to act in a stricter framework. The paper argues that the new Regulation preserves the efficiency of the Comitology system; at the same time, however, it does not really improve the level of transparency and clarity in the way in which the committees' procedures works. Moreover, as the practice clearly shows, the EC continues to enjoy a broad discretion in the adoption of implementing acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With and after the Lisbon Treaty Comitology experienced a surprisingly radical reform of which the winner seems to be the Commission. Most observers, however, expect the ECJ to draw a difficult line between Art. 290 and 291 TFEU. The question is why such a radical reform on treaty level was possible at all while the reform of comitology rules on a lower level turned out to be so little radical. In answering this question, rational-choice explanations conceptualizing community institutions and Member States as fully rational actors do not get very far while approaches including cultural factors and unintended consequences explain a lot more. Yet the puzzle remains how the introduction of delegated legislation including at least a partial abolition of comitology could survive two intergovernmental conferences without being withdrawn by the Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of comitology-the system of implementation committees that control the Commission in the execution of delegated powers-has been characterised by institutional tensions. The crux of these tensions has often been the role of the European Parliament and its quest to be granted powers equal to those of the Council. This process came to a head with the 2006 Comitology reform and the introduction of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny ( RPS). After just over three years of experience with the RPS procedure, the Treaty of Lisbon has made it redundant through the creation of Delegated Acts ( Article 290 TFEU). This article aims to evaluate the practical implications that Delegated Acts will entail for the Parliament, principally by using the experience with the RPS to better understand the challenges ahead. This analysis will be of interest to those following the study of comitology, formal and informal inter-institutional relations and also to practitioners who will have to work with Delegated Acts in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of comitology and the introduction of the new instrument of delegated acts in the Lisbon Treaty were followed by protracted negotiations on the implementation of both articles. This article examines the resultant system that has emerged for both types of non-legislative instruments. In the area of implementing acts, a new regulation sets out important changes: a reduction in the number of procedures, the extension of the scope to trade defence measures and the replacement of a referral to the Council with a new appeal committee. With respect to delegated acts, the search for an overarching framework resulted in a Common Understanding. Our analysis not only demonstrates the need to go beyond the treaty provisions in understanding the nature of non-legislative rule making in the EU, but also emphasises the importance of informal procedures and non-binding agreements in fully assessing the nature of non-legislative rule making in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Parliament is frequently seen as the 'big winner' of the Lisbon Treaty, given the fact that several changes have significantly extended its powers, such as the extension of co-decision as the ordinary legislative procedure, and the introduction of the assent procedure to international agreements. The reform of comitology (Article 291) and the introduction of the new instrument of delegated acts (Article 290) are generally seen in the same light, marking the culmination of a long-standing quest of the EP to gain equal rights to the Council in this area. This article questions the view that the Parliament has had unconditional 'success' by examining in detail the way the new provisions have been implemented. It argues that Member States in the Council managed to claw back influence on delegated powers through the manner that the new treaty articles have been put into practice. We identify the EP's timing and selective attention with regard to this domain as the main explanations for this outcome. Our analysis demonstrates the need to study the actual implementation of treaty provisions before coming to a conclusion about the identity of 'winners' and 'losers' of treaty reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Lisbon Treaty represented a rare opportunity to redesign parliamentary control of the European Commission's delegated powers. The new Treaty distinguishes between delegated and implementing acts and specifies that comitology rules must be decided by a co-decision regulation. This necessitated a reform of the comitology system, which was decided in December 2010 after protracted inter-institutional negotiations. This article asks why the new control system took its final form. The negotiations as a game of control positions are analyzed and the course of the negotiations is traced through documents and interviews. Support is found for the article's hypotheses, but it is also the case that events in some respects went further than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comitology regime, the committee-based system developed as a mechanism for controlling the Commission's exercise of its powers to implement EU measures, has been subject to severe criticism on grounds of lack of accountability and transparency. The system has recently been fundamentally reformed by means of the new Implementing Acts Regulation, which came into force on 1 March 2011. This paper investigates whether the new rules are sufficient to remedy accountability deficits as regards implementing acts and concludes that as far as accountability to the Member States is concerned, their control powers have remained static. In addition, the new-delegated acts procedure introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon grants the European Parliament (EP) more control powers, although the EP's gains are more modest than they might appear. This change has come at the cost of reduced control powers for Member States as well as lowered standards of transparency for the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the institutional modifications operated by the Lisbon Treaty (2010), the priorities of the Spanish Presidency (January-June 2010) and their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]