Interinstitutional agreement on the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission, Comitology

PURPOSE : to adopt an interinstitutional agreement on comitology. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Agreement between the Commission and the European Parliament on the procedures for implementing the new Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 which lays down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission. CONTENT : the European Commission presented a proposal for a decision in June 1998 aiming to simplify and make more democratic and more transparent the committee system which assists in the exercise of certain implementation powers, proposal adopted by the Council on 28 June 1999 (refer to document CNS/1998/0219). Throughout the interinstitutional negotiations which brought about this decision, it was provided that the European Parliament and the Commission concluded an interinstitutional agreement on the terms of application of certain aspects of this decision, to explain certain points that the Council was not ready to take in its decision and at the same time to organise in a more precise way the new information system and control of the implementation measures. It is the purpose of this agreement to meet this double objective and to clarify and strengthen information from the European Parliament on the work done by certain committees. With this agreement, the Commission even agrees to forward to the Parliament, for information, at the request of the parliamentary committee responsible, specific draft measures for implementing basic instruments not adopted under the codecision procedures. It is provided that documents shall be forwarded electronically and confidential documents shall be processed in accordance with internal administrative procedures drawn up by each institution with a view to providing all the requisite guarantees. The agreement also sets out the technical arrangements in terms of delay terms in case of refusal, by the Parliament, of draft implementation measures on a basic instrument adopted based on the codecison procedure (such is as provided for in Council Decision 1999/468/EC). In this case, a resolution is adopted at plenary session by the Parliament which it is to have a period of one month in which to do so. In urgent cases and in the case of measures relating to day-to-day administrative matters and/or having a limited period of validity; the time limit may very short in extremely urgent cases (notably on public health grounds). The Commissioner responsible should thus set the appropriate time limit and state the reason for that time-limit. The Parliament may then delegate its decision power to its Parliamentary committee in charge of in the time limit set by the Commissioner. Lastly, the agreement states that the Parliament supports the aim of the procedures set out in Declaration No 2 of the Council and the Commission (OJ C.203/1999 p.1) which is aimed at simplifying Community implementing arrangements by bringing the committee procedures currently in force into line with those resulting from Council Decision 1999/468/EC.�