I have been waiting for a book that I can throw at someone who comes with a question about EU law-making. For a long while, I’d have to rummage around in my small office library, and test the catching skills of the questioner with a variety of texts.
Today, I think most of the answers of the most to most of the questions anyone is ever going to ask me is in one handy book. The Editors have assembled a powerful team of writers who have shared their decades of real life experience into 343 pages.
The writing is practical, clear and informed. Information is summarised in useful process charts (I like process charts) and clear comparision charts. The writers have presented what most others manage to turn into garbled opaque text into plain English guidance.
I am pleased to see reference to the importance of using EU VoteWatch. To be honest, without it you do yourself, let alone your client, no service. It’s an essential tool. You are blind without it.
It will be a useful introduction to new Commissioners next year. They’ll be able to learn quickly what their department and Cabinets are doing in their name. Some seem hoodwinked by their civil servants after four years.
It is conviniently divided into three sections:
1. How the EU Institutions Work: Looking at the EU Instiututions (Commission, Coucnil, EP, Court, etc)
2. How EU Decision-Making Works : 1. ORdinary LEgislative Procedure, 2. and Delegated and Implementing Acts:’New Comitology’
3. How to Work with the EU Instuutoms and Decison-Making: Ethiscs to practical guides
These practical guides are good.
My only regret is that I’ll have to retire my well thrown heavy copy of the ‘Commission’s Manual of Procedures’. A more useful and aerodynamic substitute exists.