Dynamics of Change in the European Union by Daniel Naurin & Anne Rasmussen

Author:Daniel Naurin & Anne Rasmussen [Naurin, Daniel & Rasmussen, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415529877
Google: Y5m4pwAACAAJ
Goodreads: 13712036
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Role of the Rapporteur and the System of Report Allocation

The legislative powers of the EP vary depending on the inter-institutional procedure required for adopting legislation in a given policy area. Since the introduction of the co-decision procedure in the Treaty of the European Union (1993), the extension of its application to ever more policy areas in the Amsterdam (1999) and Nice (2003) treaties, and the virtual abolition of the cooperation procedure, the two main procedures used in adopting EU legislation have become consultation and co-decision. The balance of power between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers in the bicameral legislative system of the EU varies greatly between the two procedures. Under consultation the Parliament’s powers are confined to giving its opinion, bar the exceptional cases in which it is supported by the Commission and is able to exert limited pressure by delaying proposals or linking them to co-decision draft legislation (Kardasheva 2009). In contrast, under co-decision the EP has an unconditional veto power placing it on equal footing with the Council.1 The differential powers of the EP under the two procedures influence the level and type of external and internal pressure it attracts. The primary focus of such pressure is on the parliamentary legislative committees, where most of the formal parliamentary deliberation takes place, open to the public. The committees draft reports on the Commission proposals in which they propose amendments to the plenary for consideration in formulating the final EP position. However, there are substantial differences in the types and number of legislative reports that each committee writes depending on the policy area it covers.2 The differences in legislative power between the committees affect the competitiveness of their working environment, the leverage their members have in advancing special interests, and the incentives national parties and party groups have to exert control over them.

Within a committee, usually one rapporteur is assigned to write each incoming draft report. The rapporteur is the primary legislator responsible for organising discussions and hearings on a legislative proposal within the committee, proposing draft amendments and building majority support for the draft report. He or she has to present the committee draft report to the plenary after the final committee vote and give an opinion on changes proposed on the floor. The rapporteur also follows the report development through later readings, sits on the conciliation committee if one is formed (in the third reading of the co-decision procedure), and, as of late, follows the legislative act in the implementation stage should the Regulatory Procedure with Scrutiny apply in the comitology system. In all these activities, he or she is expected to represent the committee’s view rather than a personal or partisan stance. However, limited time resources put the rapporteur in a powerful ‘agenda-setting’ position. For instance, he or she would negotiate the parliamentary position on a legislative proposal in secluded trilogue meetings with representatives of the Commission and the Council that lead to informal inter-institutional agreements sometimes without a clear committee mandate, e.g. before

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