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European Parliament: Working Document: on amending the Rules of Procedure to take into account the changing relationships between the European Parliament and the institutions

01 November 2011

European Parliament: Working Document: on amending the Rules of Procedure to take into account the changing relationships between the European Parliament and the institutions representing the national governments following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty Committee on Constitutional Affairs Rapporteur: Alain Lamassoure (pdf) A very interesting document which takes on the problems posed by new post-Lisbon bodies created at the level of the Council of the European Union on which the European Parliament has little information nor control - the new Permanent President, the High Representative (defence and foreign policy) and the Eurogroup (financial) - to which could be added the plethora of new agencies and bodies. The document says that: "these new ‘intergovernmental’ bodies are now fulfilling the role of a collective executive." And that the parliament is only involved "at the stage of legal implementation" but not at the level of the primary decision-making in the Council summits.

The only mechanism for reporting European Council Summits (comprised of Prime Ministers) to the parliament is when the President of the Council (van Rompuy) briefs "the Enlarged Bureau of the European Parliament instead of to a plenary sitting of the European Parliament" - and he has made clear that this will continue to be the practice as "he was responsible only to the European Council, his only ‘master’" (Speech by Herman Van Rompuy, 7 January 2010). In effect the European Council "outrageously... debates and decides behind closed doors."