I’m updating some chapters in a book, and I wanted to check if the common view in Brussels that the VDL I Commission flooded the system with ordinary legislative proposals, was true.
The easiest way to do this was to look at the Commission’s own data and see how many ordinary legislative laws were adopted each year.
I’ve listed them in a table below.
|
Year
|
Ordinary Legislation
|
Commission President
|
Link
|
|
2010
|
57
|
Barroso II
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2010/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2011
|
77
|
Barroso II
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2011/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2012
|
69
|
Barroso II
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2012/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2013
|
114
|
Barroso II
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2013/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2014
|
142
|
Barroso II
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2014/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2015
|
72
|
Juncker
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2015/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2016
|
72
|
Juncker
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2016/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2017
|
72
|
Juncker
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2017/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2018
|
73
|
Juncker
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2018/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2019
|
126
|
Juncker
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2019/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2020
|
63
|
von der Leyen I
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2020/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2021
|
87
|
von der Leyen I
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2021/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2022
|
73
|
von der Leyen I
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2022/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2023
|
77
|
von der Leyen I
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2023/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
|
2024
|
135
|
von der Leyen I
|
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/statistics/2024/legislative-acts-statistics.html
|
So, according to the Commission’s figures, President Juncker’s Commission took through 415 pieces of ordinary legislation, and President von der Leyen took through 20 more, at 435, just under 5% more.
President Barroso in his second term steered through 459 ordinary pieces of legislation. You’ll have to go back to the Prodi Commission to see the lowest number of ordinary legislation passed: 404.
I have the data for secondary legislation for the last few years. There are no major spikes.
It could be claimed that the level of ambition of VDL I’d proposal was groundbreaking. From a 27 year time horizon, I’d question that. On the Green Deal files I know well, many were upgrades, not revolutionary out of the blue proposals.
The reality may well be that some people are surprised that the only real instrument the EU has to move things is to pass rules. Less exciting than spending lots of taxpayers’ money, but that’s the way things have been since 1957.
As to the idea the USA at the Federal level is some panacea for low regulatory action I’d recommend this article, which whilst slightly dated, is clear.
