This book revisits the Treaty of Lisbon's promise to further parliamentarize the EU's functioning by looking into the Treaty-law framework governing the delegation of legislative power in the EU. In this field, the Lisbon Treaty formally greatly strengthened the position of the European Parliament vis-à-vis both the European Commission and the Council. The book explores whether Parliament's formally reinforced role is reflected in the actual balance of powers in the area of delegated legislation and executive rule-making. It does so by assessing how both the law and practice of decision-making at the legislative level, looking at specific case studies, and the sub-legislative level, examining the scrutiny over delegated legislation, has crystallized in the ten years following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. This rigorous study gives a fascinating insight into one of the most significant developments in European parliamentary law-making, which EU constitutional lawyers will find required reading.
1. Introduction
I. A Primer: Operationalising Institutional Balance as a Yardstick for Assessing Institutional Developments
A. Devising an Institutional Balance Test
B. Applying the Institutional Balance Test to Identify Constitutional Modifications
II. Structure of the Enquiry
2. A Formal Reading of the Lisbon Treaty
I. The Formal Catalogue of Acts
II. The Lisbon Treaty's 'Atypical' Acts
III. The Distinction between Delegated and Implementing Acts:
A Cursory Reading of the TFEU
A. Key Features of Article 290 TFEU
B. Key Features of Article 291 TFEU
IV. Parliamentary Control Over Post-Lisbon Executive Acts
3. The Road Leading Up to the Lisbon Treaty
I. Comitology's Origins and Original Sin
II. Judicial Sanctioning of Comitology and the Commission's Broad Implementing Powers
III. From the Single European Act to the 2006 Revision of the Second Comitology Decision
A. Codification: The SEA and the First Comitology Decision
B. A Call for Parliamentarisation and the Second Comitology Decision
C. The Constitution and the Amendment of the Second Comitology Decision
IV. A Recalibrated Institutional Balance
4. The Exponential Multiplication of Delimitation Problems
I. Delimitation of Autonomous Executive Acts against (Delegated) Legislation and Implementation
A. Autonomous Executive Acts vs Legislation
B. Autonomous Executive Acts vs Implementation
C. Institutional Implications
II. Delimitation of Legislation and Delegation
III. Delimitation of Delegated and Implementing Acts
A. Judicial Clarifications in Biocides, Eures Network and Visa Reciprocity
B. Amendments as Implementation
C. The PRAC, a Zombie in EU Law
D. The 2019 Inter-Institutional Agreement
E. Legislative Practice in Light of the 2019 IIA
5. Delegated Power: Further Limits and Procedure
I. The Passive Personal Scope of Article 290 TFEU
II. Breaking Down the Specificity Requirement
A. Duration and Objectives
B. Content and Scope
III. Testing Specificity in Practice
IV. Procedural Limits to the Exercise of Delegated Powers
A. The Drafting of Delegated Acts
B. The Control Exercised by the Legislator: Objection and Revocation
6. Implementing Power: Triggering Factors, Nature, Extent and Procedure
I. The Notion of Uniform Conditions
II. Reconceptualising Implementing Powers Post-Lisbon
A. May Implementing Acts Implement Delegated Acts?
B. The Nature and Extent of Implementing Powers under Article 291 TFEU
C. The Eures Network Standard as the Single Standard for Implementation
D. The Institutions' Constitutional Modification of Article 291(2) TFEU
III. Exceptional Implementation by the Council
A. CFSP Implementation by the Council
B. Duly Justified Specific Cases of Implementation by the Council
C. Implementation by the European Council
IV. The (not so) Closed List of Implementing actors and Implementing Acts
A. EU Agencies
B. Sui Generis Implementing Acts
V. The Comitology Procedures
A. The Proposal for and Negotiations on the Comitology Regulation
B. The Comitology Regulation
C. The Functioning of the Post-Lisbon Comitology Regime
D. The European Parliament's Droit de Regard
VI. No Self-Love, the 2017 Proposal to Amend the Comitology Regulation
7. The Practice and Politics of Delegated Legislation
I. Strategies in Delegating Powers
A. Adding Levels and Strategies to the Model
B. Testing the Model
II. General Data Protection Regulation
A. The Commission's Proposal
B. The Trilogues and the Resulting Text of the GDPR
C. Assessment
III. Data Governance Act
A. The Commission's Proposal
B. The Trilogues and the Resulting Text of the Data Governance Act
C. Assessment
IV. Refining the Model
8. Conclusion
I. Looking Back .
II. . to Move Forward
Annex: Overview of Autonomous Executive Legal Bases
Merijn Chamon is Professor of EU Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium.