LEGI note treatment of OLP dossiers Draft for CCC rev....pdf

Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union
Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union
5 July 2023
BACKGROUND DOCUMENT
Treatment of files under the Ordinary Legislative Procedure in view of the end
of the legislature*
Executive summary
Fol owing the adoption of Parliament’s calendar for 2024, a more precise planning process
for  the  end  of  the  ninth  legislature  can  be  triggered.  As  regards  files  under  the  Ordinary
Legislative  Procedure  (OLP),  this  requires  a  specific  planning  to  ensure  that  certain
deadlines and procedures are respected and that many OLP files can be concluded by the
end of the legislative term.
As the end of the legislative term approaches, there are two factors that could influence the
prioritisation  of  legislative  files.  There  is  still  an  increased  likelihood  of  urgent  or  fast
track  procedures  given  the  ongoing  war  in  Ukraine  as  well  as  possible  pressure  to
finalise the Joint Declaration files.
In addition to the logistical constraints set out in the letter from the Chair of the Conference
of  Committee  Chairs  to  President  Metsola1  and  addressed  by  a  decision  in  the  CoP,  the
limits  on  capacity  for  translation  and  legal-linguistic  verification  in  both  Council  and
Parliament will influence the feasibility to finalise files. The number of ongoing files is 223
under the Ordinary Legislative Procedure. As in the previous term, it will not be possible to
conclude  all  these  files  in  this  term  due  to  capacity  and  time  limitations  at  Council
and EP level. In addition, there are still important files expected from the Commission
until  the  end  of  the  term.  Therefore,  an  early  priority  setting  and  agreement  among
involved actors is especially important. There will be files that will have to be carried over
to the next legislature.
It is clear already that in order for a file to have visibility, it would be recommendable that
Committees  aim  to  have  Parliament’s  first  reading  adopted  during  the  January  and
February plenary sessions of 2024. It is anticipated that the March and April sessions of
2024 will be quite full and might need to be reserved for urgent files.
Key dates and milestones:
1. 11 July 2023 - CCC meeting - first exchange of views with Chairs,
• Autumn 2023 - Committees should conduct a political prioritisation process for OLP
files by October,
2. 21 November  2023 - CCC meeting - updated exchange of views  on the priorities, also
with the incoming Belgian Presidency,
• 5-9  February  2024  -  last  week  to  reach  provisional  agreements with  Council  in
order for the file to be published before summer 2024,
• 11-15 March 2024 - last week to reach provisional agreements with Council in
order  for  the  file  to  be  published  in  autumn  2024  under  the  corrigendum
procedure,
*Prepared by the Legislative Affairs Unit.
1 Letter of 13 April 2023 from CCC Chair Lange to President Metsola.

3.  12 March 2024 - CCC meeting - follow-up on state of play on remaining OLP files and
outlook on the new term,
        •  22-25 April 2024 - last plenary session in the ninth legislative term.

The Chairs of the Conference of Committees Chairs (CCC) are invited to:
– consider and exchange on the note and start a prioritisation process in view of the
end of the legislature.

Introduction

This note looks at the main constraints related to the finalisation of the ongoing OLP files in
the months before the 2024 European elections. It aims to provide essential information for
committee chairs concerning the planning of the legislative files in their committees towards
the end of the term. Although at this stage the progress  on the outstanding dossiers is  still
difficult to predict, the note illustrates the different scenarios and their implications in line with
our Rules of Procedure in view of the end of the parliamentary term.

There are currently 223 files under the OLP:
  Of these 223 files, 210 are in EP first reading procedure. Of those there are 38 under
negotiation, 45 have been provisionally agreed in trilogues and  in 6 files Parliament
has a negotiating mandate but the negotiations have not yet started. The remaining
123 files are still at committee level and we expect up to 30 more new proposals from
the  Commission  later  in  the  term  (including  around  27  Joint  Declaration  2023-2024
files).
  Out of the 223 files, 12 files are awaiting Council's first reading position and one file
is provisionally agreed awaiting Parliament’s second reading position.
  Out of the 223 files, 14 files are blocked or considered obsolete.

The three March and April plenary sessions of 2024 - where the majority of files negotiated
during  the  first  months  will  be  voted  -  will  be  extremely  busy,  and  with  little  or  no  time  for
plenary debates. A high workload is also expected for translation and plenary services, and
timely planning will be essential for ensuring a smooth running of the March and April part-
sessions.  Committees  should  therefore  consider,  voting  their  files  during  the  January  and
February plenary sessions, as they should be less full and offer more visibility and debating
time.

In  general,  committees  should  therefore  be  encouraged  to  reflect  in  advance  on  the
prospect  of  the  different  OLP  procedures,  as  several  scenarios  are  possible,  as
described in part II.

I.  Trends expected towards the end of the ninth legislative term

Apart  of  the  huge  number  of  open  files,  several  factors  come  together  to  make  the  end  of
this parliamentary term particularly complex and rather unpredictable:

1.  The increased use of the urgent procedure (EP Rule of Procedure 163)

A  bit  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  OLP  files  during  this  term  were  adopted  under  the  urgent
procedure, i.e. 57 out of 285 concluded files. It is still likely that more proposals will be made
before  the  end  of  the  term  for  which  an  urgent  or  a  fast  track  procedure  will  be  proposed
(e.g.  Industrial  package).  This  could  have  an  effect  on  the  legislative  planning  for  the
plenary, as these files would need to be added to the agenda.

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Besides,  inter-institutional  negotiations  took  place  in  only  five  of  these  urgent  procedures.
Therefore,  the  expectation  is  that  most  procedures  based  on  Rule  163  will  be  dealt  with
within one plenary week, without a need for plenary mandates and trilogues.

2.  Priority files - the Joint Declaration files

The Joint Declaration process was set up in the second part of the eighth term in an attempt
to  establish  joint  legislative  programming  under  the  2016  Interinstitutional  Agreement  on
Better Law Making. Five Joint Declarations (2017; 2018-2019; 2021; 2022; and 2023-2024)
have  been  agreed  upon  until  now.  This  now  yearly  exercise  also  created  a  high  level  of
expectation,  especially  from  the  Commission.  This  exerts  a  lot  of  pressure  on  the  co-
legislators to conclude these files before the end of the legislative term, despite the politically
complex dimension of some of them and the difficult negotiations due to their cross-cutting
nature.

In practice, the Joint Declaration constitutes a long list of files (currently 164) which de facto
does not identify items of major political importance, neither does it necessarily translate into
concrete additional support for those files or have an impact on the timely presentation of the
proposals  by  the  Commission.  Despite  of  the  length  of  the  list  of  files  included,  the  Joint
Declaration primarily constitutes a list of Council priorities that fall within the responsibilities
of the Commission Vice Presidents.


II. Different options for handling ongoing OLP files towards the end of the term

Below is a description of the different scenarios for the OLP files at the end of the term.

A.  Provisional agreement following interinstitutional negotiations

a)  Files agreed in first reading to be published before summer 2024

A  provisional  agreement  should,  in  principle,  be  reached,  in  a  complete  consolidated
version  (no  more  work  at  technical  level  required),  by  the  end  of  the  first  week  of
February 2024 (calendar week 6) in order for the respective text to be published by summer
2024. This implies that Parliament should receive the Coreper letter by mid-February 2024.
This  would  allow  for  the  eight  weeks  necessary  for  translation  (two  weeks)  and  legal
linguistic  verification  (six  weeks)  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  EP  first  reading  (in  the  last
plenary sessions in April 2024), bearing in mind that the number of provisionally agreed files
tends  to  grow  significantly  towards  the  end  of  the  term,  and  that  additional  difficulties  may
arise.

b)  Files agreed in first reading to be published in the autumn of 2024 (following a
corrigendum procedure)

Trilogue negotiations may continue until early March 2024 (calendar week 10) for a vote in
the last March plenary, and until mid-March 2024 (calendar week 11) for a vote in the last
April plenary but this will not allow for publication before the EP elections and nearly always
implies  a  corrigendum  procedure.  This  scenario  infers  that  Parliament  should  receive  the
Coreper letter by mid-March 2024.

An  EP  first  reading  agreed  with  the  Council  but  not  finalised  would  be  subject  to  a
corrigendum  procedure  under  Rule  241  (see  Annex).  This  requires  that  the  committee
responsible examines the draft corrigendum and submits it to plenary for adoption (this is not
possible during the election break, so all stages of the corrigendum procedure will take place
at the beginning of the next parliamentary term). Normally, the Council would only adopt the
text  after  the  plenary  vote  on  the  corrigendum,  and  therefore  the  text  would  only  be
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published  in  the  Official  Journal  during  the  autumn  of  2024.  Although  the  corrigendum
procedure  bears  a  certain  risk,  it  was  used  a  lot  at  the  end  of  the  last  legislature  to  allow
negotiations to continue for a few more weeks.

B.  Dealing with the other OLP files

If  negotiations  cannot  be  concluded  with  a  provisional  agreement,  or  if the  negotiations  do
not  start,  a  formal  decision  will  be  necessary  for  every  individual  file  as  to  whether,  at  the
end of the term, the files concerned should be adopted in plenary or on the contrary remain
at  the  stage  of  committee  reports  or  mandates  (committee  or  plenary  mandates).  This
decision  will  again  impact  on  the  planning  of  the  plenary  and  the  work  of  the  translation
services and the lawyer linguists. By the end of the 8th legislature 130 files did not have a
provisional agreement. Parliament adopted a first reading position for 86 of them, while 44
files were subject to Rule 240 concerning unfinished business (see below the explanation in
Part III).

a)
Plenary first reading position (non-agreed)

This is the most “stable” of the options as EP first readings are not unfinished business and
therefore not subject to Rule 240. The file will be in the hands of the Council (early second
reading).

An EP first reading position could be sought for many different scenarios (work at committee
level  or  files  with  committee  or  plenary  mandates).  This  includes  files  where  negotiations
have not started or could not be concluded successfully.

b)
Unfinished business (Rule 240)

1.  Plenary mandates (Rule 59 and Rule 60)

If the  current  Parliament  adopts  a  plenary  mandate  and  refers  it  back for  negotiations,  the
next  Parliament  could  decide  to resume  on  that  basis,  taking  into  account  the result  of the
unfinished business exercise (Rule 240).

2.  Committee mandates (Rule 71)

For committee mandates announced in plenary, the next Parliament could decide to resume
on that basis, taking into account the result of the unfinished business exercise (Rule  240).
The next Parliament could also decide to adopt a plenary mandate.

3.  Committee reports (Rule 59)

For  committee  reports  adopted  but  not  placed  on  the  plenary  agenda  during  the  current
legislative term, the next Parliament could again decide to resume on that basis, taking into
account the result of the unfinished business exercise (Rule 240).

C.  Files where the Council first reading could be transmitted

The  Treaty  foresees  several  deadlines  for  the  second  and  third  reading,  which  have  to  be
observed, irrespective of election periods or summer recesses (see Annex). For this reason,
it  is  crucial that  the  Council  does  not transmit  Council first readings  during  the  EP  election
break and before legislative work in Parliament resumes.

The  usual  practice  is  that  the  Council  consults  the  responsible  committee  (and  also  the
Commission) about the date of transmission of  its first reading (see points 6 and 20 of the
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Joint Declaration (see Annex)). To this end, it is crucial to discuss and agree with Council in
advance  the  transmission  times  of  future  Council  first  reading  positions.  In  case  of  early
second reading negotiations after the election break, the Council first reading position is not
transmitted until after negotiations have been successfully concluded.

III.
Outlook: Unfinished business in Parliament

As concerns the ordinary legislative procedure, "unfinished business" means any legislative
proposal referred by the Commission to Parliament on which parliamentary work is ongoing
(preparatory phase, (draft) committee report, committee or plenary mandate).

The  Treaty  does  not  contain  any  explicit  provision  with  regard  to  the  handling  of  possible
unfinished business at the end of a legislative term, but it allows the Commission to alter its
proposal as long as the Council has not acted (see Annex). Unfinished business is dealt with
in the Parliament under Rule 240 (see Annex).

Rule 240 of the Parliament’s Rules of Procedures stipulates that “at the end of the last part-
session  before  elections,  all  Parliament's  unfinished  business  shall  be  deemed  to  have
lapsed”, unless the Conference of Presidents – at the beginning of the new term – decides
“on  reasoned  requests  from  parliamentary  committees  and  other  institutions  to  resume  or
continue the consideration of such unfinished business”.

Moreover,  Rule  61  (see  Annex)  allows  Parliament  to  ask  the  Commission  to  refer  its
proposal back to Parliament where elections have taken place. (Thus in theory, even where
a first reading was adopted and Council has not acted.) The Commission is, of course, free
to act or not on this request. Rule 61 has not been used so far for that purpose.

The box below outlines the 2019 experience and the steps taken for facilitating the decision
of  the  Conference  of  Presidents  on  the  resumption  of  business  at  the  beginning  of  the
current legislative term (including the consultation of the committees on ongoing files), which
covered both exercises under Rules 240 and 61.

Handling "unfinished business" at the start of the current legislative term

In 2019, the following steps were taken to handle unfinished business:

  11 July 2019: EP President wrote to the Commission, Council, and Chair of the CCC
recalling  Rule  240  and  announcing  an  upcoming  decision  of  the  CoP  on  the
unfinished business of the last legislature;

  24 July 2019: Chair of the CCC wrote to the new Committees Chairs inviting them to
list  the  unfinished  business  they  would  like  to  resume,  the  pending  proposals  they
would like the Commission to withdraw and the unfinished procedures for which they
would  wish  the  Commission  to  prepare  a  modified  position.  The  deadline  of  19
September 2019 was given to committees.

  18 October 2019: EP President wrote to the President of the Commission and to the
Finnish Presidency of the Council communicating the decision of the CoP with the list
of  files  to  be  resumed.  Work  on  files  where  the  EP  first  reading  had  not  been
finalised  before  the  elections  was  continued;  Parliament  asked  the  Commission  to
withdraw twelve proposals.

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