It is useful to have rules and to follow them. The EU is a rules-based system. There is no shortage for them. The Commission has lots of them. They have hidden most of them out in plain sight.
For example:
President’s Political Guidelines – https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/political-guidelines-next-commission_en.pdf
Work Programme – https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/2019-commission-work-programme-key-documents_en
Working Methods – https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/the_working_methods_of_the_european_commission_2014-2019_november2014_en.pdf
Commission’s Rules of Procedure – https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:02000Q3614-20111116
Manual of Operating Procedures of the Commission (not public)
Staff Regulations – https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/service-standards-and-principles/codes-conduct/staff_en
Rules for Secondary legislation
Around 98% of all EU law-making is secondary legislation.
It is fortunate that the Commission has these internal rules to deal with that:
Delegated Acts(covers RPS)
These decisions go through thousands of decision-making committees that the Commission chairs.
These Committees have standard rules of procedure. There are standard rules for Committees sitting to work on delegated acts or implementing acts/ rps measures. Given there are so many committees you’d not be surprised to find out their operation and rules are standardised.
For delegated acts, the decision (here) and Communication (here).
The rules of procedures are delegated acts are in Annex 3 (pages 25-31) here, and for implementing acts/RPS here, p.11.
Are the rules used?
A brief survey of the Comitology Register, dealing with implementing acts and RPS measures, shows that most, although not all Committees, have rules of procedure. For example, for DG Environment’s 30 Committees dealing with implementing acts or RPS measures, 10 did not have Rules of Procedure annexed (link).
A review of the Register of Commission Expert Groups (link) for the environment mainly dealing with delegated acts and implementing legislation, shows 50 groups operational. The majority do not have published rules of procedure.
Have Rules
Don’t have rules
There seems to be no pattern to the reason for the presence or the absence of rules of procedure.
Further Review
It’s a subject for another day if:
- the rules in place are in line with the recommended rules of procedure, and
- allow for, in practice, experts from the EP and Council to attend their meetings when discussing delegated acts.
Since 2016, for delegated acts, the Commission needs to allow both the European Parliament and Council to send their experts to join the meetings.
“Where they consider this necessary, the European Parliament and the Council may each send experts to meetings of the Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts to which Member States’ experts are invited. To that end, the European Parliament and the Council shall receive the planning for the following months and invitations for all experts meetings.” Para 10. Inter-Institutional Agreement, 2016, Annex Para 11 (link).
There may be consequences if the wrong procedures have been followed or EP and Council experts have not been informed. That will be for another day.