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The Effect of Removing Voting Rules: Consultation Practices in the Commission's Delegated Act Expert Groups and Comitology Committees
Author(s) -
Siderius Katrijn,
Brandsma Gijs Jan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12380
Subject(s) - veto , voting , commission , parliament , member state , treaty , political science , state (computer science) , law and economics , law , member states , public administration , business , european union , computer science , sociology , algorithm , politics , economic policy
Abstract The Lisbon Treaty changed the system of delegating executive powers to the European Commission: it introduced the delegated acts system as an alternative to comitology, which continues to exist in parallel. This new system allocates veto power to the European Parliament and the Council, in which Member State expert groups are consulted without having a formal vote. The Council fears that the absence of formal voting will tempt the Commission to ignore Member State input in the expert groups. This article investigates to what degree this fear is justified. To what degree do formal voting rights affect the consultation of Member State experts? On the basis of interviews with Member State experts who participate both in expert groups as well as in comitology committees, we demonstrate how consultation patterns differ between the two settings.