There have been two recent cases – E171 and flumioxazine – where the Commission submitted comitology proposals for scrutiny to the European Parliament that did not allow the EP the time to effectively scrutinise the proposal.
There is no better way to unify MEPs than to give the perception of trying to by-pass the limited rights of scrutiny.
Parliamentarians the world over guard their hard-won parliamentary privileges.
A few of us who have seen the EP’s struggles to be given effective parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation over the last twenty plus years. To bypass this privilege is a political red flag to a bull.
What happens if you bait the bear
In both cases, the Environment Committee asked the Commission early on to withdraw the measures.
In both cases, the Commission waited until the Environment Committee voted the measures down before they withdrew them.
And, in both cases, the Commission immediately re-tabled the same unadjusted measure back to the Environment Committee.
Today, 9 September, the Commission withdrew the E171 RPS measure, after seeing it it voted down in the Environment Committee on 7 September.
The decision to withdraw is taken by the Commissioner in charge of the proposal (in both cases DG SANTE) and the Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations. They inform the Chair of the EP Committee of their decision to withdraw. They do so “in the interest of sincere cooperation between our institutions”.
What happens next
The mechanics going forward are that as soon as the fresh measure is received by the Environment Committee’s secretariat, the following happens:
1. Secretariat check with the coordinators if the existing objection stands.
2. If the coordinators confirm the objection, the objection is transmitted to the Plenary.
3. The Plenary votes on the challenge. The objection needs 353 or more to be adopted.
In the flumioxazine case, the measure secured 415 votes for the objection, 252 against, and 20 abstentions.