The European Parliament is extending its influence over legislation through "conciliation". It was brought in by the Maastricht Treaty to enable MEPs and the Council to settle their differences when they disagreed on matters being adopted by co-decision. Conciliation is now being used more and more. This month's EP News looks at the results of the first four years.
Pressure vessels, novel foods and telecommunications interconnections are unlikely to grab the headlines. Yet, these are examples of policy areas where the European Parliament is acting in the interests of the European people. They are among the legislative proposals discussed since November 1993, where disagreement between MEPs and Council led to the convening of the "conciliation procedure". The conciliation procedure is a response by member states to criticisms of the "democratic deficit".
Member states agreed in 1992 to increase the legislative power of the European Parliament by introducing the co-decision procedure. This allows MEPs to reject outright the final product if they are dissatisfied with the result, and to negotiate directly with Council (in "conciliation") to avoid such an outcome. This represented a considerable step forward from the co-operation procedure brought in by the Single European Act. Under the Act, a rejection vote by Parliament prevailed only when member states were divided. The aim of the conciliation procedure is to iron out differences through negotiations between Parliament and Council, and to reach a compromise. Its very existence promotes early agreement.
The alternative - of MEPs walking out of the talks and rejecting outright a proposal in its final form - would lead to Parliament being blamed for dumping an important piece of legislation. Similarly, Council is now obliged to respond directly to the viewpoint of MEPs. Ministers do not want to be responsible for the breakdown of talks. Such a breakdown will generally provoke rejection, since Parliament nearly always rejects a proposal if it cannot get a satisfactory outcome in the conciliation committee. Thus, both sides are virtually compelled to reach agreement.
At the time of the Maastricht Treaty, member states were reluctant to cede substantial power to Parliament. Thus the co-decision and conciliation procedures applied only to limited but important areas. These included free movement, the Internal Market - where key decisions still had to be made - education, culture, health, consumer protection, environment, trans-European networks and research. Certain major policy areas, such as agriculture and taxation, were excluded. The conciliation committee itself is made up of the 15 Members of the Council and an equal number of representatives from Parliament. They have six weeks to draw up a joint text which, to come into force, must then be approved by Parliament and Council within another six weeks. Under further refinements, brought in by the Treaty of Amsterdam, legislation falls if the joint text is not approved by either side.
Development
There is no doubt that MEPs have been kept busy. Some 110 proposals have been examined since 1993 under the new procedure, of which 40 required conciliation. At meetings, Council is generally represented by officials rather than Ministers, who openly refuse to budge from an agreed position or to consider any of Parliament's amendments. This happened, for example, in discussions on legislation designed to protect consumer rights in cross-border deals involving long-distance communications such as electronic mail, telephone sales and teleshopping. At issue was the degree of universal protection to be given to consumers, at risk from unscrupulous salesmen. The latter may be the absence of legislation in one member state to elicit advance payments over the phone, without a guarantee that the goods ordered would actually be delivered.
Certain Council delegations were reluctant to tamper with national contract law and, in particular, property contracts, by introducing another layer of rules based on EU law. Eventually, after a series of meetings, Parliament's delegation was able to secure a commitment from Council to a seven-day cooling-off period, to allow shoppers to change their minds after the goods arrived, without penalty except for postal charges. Ministers also accepted Parliament's concern to oblige companies to disclose their address before obtaining payment.
On its side, Parliament's delegation has to be careful not to push unrealistic demands. It is important to realise that both institutions have a common interest in reaching an agreement in the interest of Europeans as a whole. The onus on Parliament is also to make sure that it has done its homework, and that members are properly briefed.
Although the main participants are Council and Parliament, Commissioners can take an active part in negotiations. It is not impossible for Council to accept a Parliamentary amendment turned down by the Commission, or to agree with Parliament a text that the Commission dislikes. At the same time, the Commission is expected to act in good faith in bringing the two sides together.
Unfortunately, on some occasions it has lost the trust of MEPs, who suspect that, in justifying opposition to an amendment on the grounds that it won't be acceptable to Ministers, it is opting for an easy way out. It has even been accused of providing Council with arguments for attacking Parliament's position. Relations deteriorated in a discussion in 1997 over the labelling rules for the highly sensitive issue of genetically modified foods.
Perhaps some measure of the success of the procedure can be seen in the Amsterdam Treaty. It includes an extension of co-decision and conciliation to new areas, including the environment, social and transport policy, aid policy and the regional fund. In the months ahead, delegations will be trying to resolve outstanding differences over such issues as car parts, whether there is to be a European market for cheaper non-brand manufacturers, and pollution from vehicle emissions. Here, MEPs are seeking binding legislation to force the car manufacturers to drastically cut back emission levels and to apply incentives for the production of cleaner engines.