EP Rules of procedure, Rules 168 and 170: setting up joint parliamentary committees and interparliamentary delegations

The committee adopted the report by Carlos CARNERO GONZALEZ (PES, E) seeking to amend Parliament's Rules of Procedure in order to resolve the current anomaly in the procedures for setting up interparliamentary delegations and joint parliamentary committees, and their respective bureaux. The problem dates back to changes made to Rule 168 in 1999 (providing for members of the interparliamentary delegations to be appointed by the Conference of Presidents and not elected by the plenary) which were not reflected in Rule 170 governing the joint parliamentary committees. The committee wanted to revert to the "status quo ante", i.e. a uniform procedure which applied to the appointment of members of standing committees, delegations and joint parliamentary committees and their respective bureaux. In all three cases, prior to the amendments of 1999, the members of those bodies were elected by the plenary on a proposal from the Conference of Presidents. The bureaux of all three bodies were then elected by the members of the respective committees, delegations or joint parliamentary committees. The committee argued that there should be parallelism in the rules governing the three bodies in order to ensure the equality and independence of Members of the European Parliament.�