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Comitology in the European Union (EU) refers to a process by which EU law is implemented or adjusted by the European Commission working in conjunction with committees of national representatives (at civil service level) from the EU member states, colloquially called "comitology committees". These are chaired by the European Commission. The official term for the process is committee procedure. Comitology committees are part of the EU's broader system of committees that assist in the making, adoption, and implementation of EU laws.
The Treaty of Lisbon reconfigured comitology system, distinguishing between:
This is codified in Articles 290 and 291 TFEU respectively.
It is the confusing number of committees that gave rise to the term "comitology". A report from the British House of Lords said, "There is no definitive list of comitology committees, their functions, activities and membership"; however, since the European Commission started to maintain a list, it states that "A list of 'comitology' committees ... is published as an Annex to the Annual reports on the work of these Committees ... as well as in the Register of Comitology." Moreover, the strongest criticism pertained to the fact that the elected European Parliament (EP) had no right to block implementing measures: only the comitology committees could do so, and if they did, the proposal was referred to Council alone, even when the initial delegation of powers was through an act adopted jointly by both Parliament and Council under the co-decision procedure. Parliament argued that the system lacked transparency and democratic control.
After years of complaint by Parliament, a significant reform placing Parliament and Council on an equal footing was to be introduced by the Constitutional Treaty. Since the latter did not get ratified, the Parliament insisted that the envisaged changes would be introduced through secondary law. An agreement was reached in 2006 and a new procedure, the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, was introduced, to be used when non-essential elements of EU legislation adopted under the co-decision procedure required amendment or supplementation.
The procedure gives Parliament and Council a period (normally of three months) to examine proposals that have been through a comitology committee. If Parliament objects to a proposal, the Commission cannot enact it. Instead, the Commission can either make a new proposal, taking account of the reasons for the objection (in which case the clock is re-set and Parliament can again block), or it can propose new legislation to Parliament and Council under the legislative co-decision procedure.
The new procedure applies whenever Council and Parliament, under co-decision on the basic legislation, choose to confer powers on the Commission to adopt implementing measures of general scope that can be described as "quasi-legislative" in nature (delegated legislation). It does not apply to administrative or purely executive decisions. The system does not apply when the original legislation is not co-decision legislation. Then, the old comitology procedures (see below) can still apply.
Article 7 paragraph 5 of the Comitology Decision states that references of the documents transmitted to the Parliament should be made available to the public. The Commission was, therefore, obliged to create a register of Comitology documents and a web-based repository to the register which enables the user to obtain direct access to certain documents which also contains a link for requesting the document, if it is not made public in the repository (in accordance with the rules of the Regulation No. 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001).
The register in general contains the following types of documents:
The Comitology regulation has only retained the advisory procedure, and replaced the management and regulatory procedures with the examination procedure. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the scenarios in which the regulatory procedure with scrutiny applied are now covered by the delegated act foreseen in Article 290 TFEU. As of 2021 the regulatory procedure with scrutiny still exists however and is in the process of being phased out.
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