A survey of 20 years of successful challenges to secondary legislation

Going through the last twenty year of successful challenges by the Council and the European Parliament to delegated acts, RPS measures and implementing acts, the following observations can be made:

1. The challenge rate is low – under 1%.
2. The Interinstitutional Register on Delegated acts (link) makes tracking them easy. Following comitology (implementing acts and RPS measures) is like walking along blindfolded. Under President Juncker, the Commission considered updating the comitology register to make it fit for purpose. It will be interesting to see if President von der Leyen improves transparency here. In her Political Guidelines, it states: “I also believe we need more transparency throughout the legislative process. I will work together with the European Parliament and the Council to make this happen. Citizens should know who we, as the institutions who serve them, meet and discuss with and what positions we defend in the legislative process” (Political Guidelines, p. 21).
3. The easiest way to track successful RPS challenges is to go through the Comitology Annual Reports.
4. The Commission’s Annual reports are useful. There are errors. The 2014 recycled plastic for food contact is listed as a successful Council RPS challenge. The Council Conclusions state the objection was not adopted.
5. The EP is most active in scrutinising and challenging secondary legislation. A Parliament’s main role is scrutinising legislation. By no scope of the imagination can their action be considered excessive.
6. Only a few areas are targeted – GMOs, pesticides and a few sensitive issues.

I’ll look to update this every few months.

20 Year of Challenges