Re: EC Legislation - Power Difference on Directive, Commission Decision, Council Deci
The following were extracted from the glossary section of the EU parliament website. It's self explainatory.
Council of the European Union
The
Council of the European Union ("Council of Ministers" or "Council") is the Union's main decision-making body. Its meetings are attended by Member State ministers and it is thus the institution which represents the Member States. The Council's headquarters are in Brussels, but some of its meetings are held in Luxembourg. Sessions of the Council are convened by the Presidency, which sets the agenda.
The Council meets in different configurations (nine in all), bringing together the competent Member State ministers: General Affairs and External Relations; Economic and Financial Affairs; Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs; Competitiveness; Cooperation in the fields of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA); Transport, Telecommunications and Energy; Agriculture and Fisheries; Environment; Education, Youth and Culture.
Each country of the European Union presides over the Council for six months, by rotation. Decisions are prepared by the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States (Coreper), assisted by working groups of national government officials.
The Council, together with the European Parliament, acts in a legislative and budgetary capacity. It is also the lead institution for decision-making on the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), and on the coordination of economic policies (intergovernmental approach), as well as being the holder of executive power, which it generally delegates to the Commission.
In most cases, the Council's decisions, based on proposals from the
Commission, are taken jointly with the European Parliament under the codecision procedure. Depending on the subject, the Council takes decisions by simple majority, qualified majority or unanimity, although the qualified majority is more widely used (agriculture, single market, environment, transport, employment, health, etc.).
The European Constitution, currently being ratified, proposes a new system for holding Council Presidencies. The Council will be presided over, for 18 months, by a team of three Member States, each of which will hold the Presidency for a period of six months, assisted by the other two States on the basis of a common programme. In addition, the General Affairs Council will be chaired by the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Lastly, there will be a change to the qualified majority voting system within the Council (double majority of the States and of the population, applicable from 2009 onwards).
The committees, whose task it is to assist the Community institutions, are involved at all stages of the legislative process. The Commission regularly consults committees of experts before drawing up a new proposal for legislation. These committees, which are made up of representatives of the milieux involved, private sector or national government experts, ensure that the Commission remains open to the concerns of those who will be affected by the legislation. There are about 60 advisory committees covering all sectors, though about half of them deal with agricultural issues.
In the European Parliament, various permanent committees organise the work of the MEPs.
The Council is also assisted by committees and working parties which prepare its decisions. The existence of certain committees is provided for in the treaties (Article 36 Committee for justice and home affairs, for example), and others are ad hoc committees such as the Cultural Affairs Committee, which evaluates proposals on cultural cooperation, prepares the Council discussions and follows up action taken. These committees are made up of representatives of the Member States plus one member of the Commission. In parallel, various working parties do the preparatory work for Coreper. While some of them are set up on a temporary basis to deal with a particular dossier, about a hundred groups cover a given sector and meet regularly.
When a legislative text has been adopted, it lays down the general principles to be respected. More precise implementing measures may be necessary to apply these principles. In this case, the text provides that a committee is to be set up within the Commission in order to take the appropriate decisions. These committees are made up of experts nominated by the Member States and chaired by the Commission, and are generally governed by rules established by the 28 June 1999 Council decision known as the 'Comitology Decision'. There are about 300 of them, in the fields of industry, social affairs, agriculture, the environment, the internal market, research and development, consumer protection and food safety.
Community legal instruments
The term Community legal instruments refers to the instruments available to the Community institutions to carry out their tasks under the Treaty establishing the European Community with due respect for the subsidiarity principle. They are:
• regulations: these are binding in their entirety and directly applicable in all Member States;
•
directives: these bind the Member States as to the results to be achieved; they have to be transposed into the national legal framework and thus leave margin for manoeuvre as to the form and means of implementation;
•
decisions: these are fully binding on those to whom they are addressed;
• recommendations and opinions: these are non-binding, declaratory instruments.
In addition to these instruments listed in Article 249 of the EC Treaty, practice has led to the development of a whole series of sui generis documents: interinstitutional agreements, resolutions, conclusions, communications, green papers and white papers.
You may search the glossary section at the following address:
http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/index_en.htm
Regards.