Community legislation: simplifying and improving the regulatory environment

The committee adopted the report by Manuel MEDINA ORTEGA (PES, E) on the Commission communication. While welcoming the aim of simplifying existing Community legislation, making better use of instruments such as self-regulation and co-regulation and ensuring better implementation of Community law, the committee recommended a large number of changes to the Commission's proposals: - legislative powers should be clearly assigned and the institutions involved in any legislation or regulation should enjoy democratic legitimacy; - under a new EU Treaty, following the Convention and the IGC, a clear distinction should be made between legislative power and regulatory bodies, with proper machinery to oversee the latter; - on the central issue of co-regulation and self-regulation, the setting-up of regulatory agencies should not affect the powers of codecision and political control enjoyed by Parliament in that these non-legislative methods are complementary to legislation and should always be based on a legislative act. The agreement of Parliament and the Council should be required for any proposal to make use of self-regulation and the objectives to be reached should be clearly stated. In addition, Parliament and the Council must have the power to review any such arrangements and to call on the Commission to propose legislative acts instead ; - total transparency is crucial in the negotiation of self-regulation agreements. A list of participants in any negotiations should therefore be available, so that Parliament and Council can verify that all interested parties are involved, and the Commission should monitor the implementation of agreements by the contracting parties; - there should also be more transparency regarding comitology and a revision of the rules governing comitology; - Parliament should be given better access to impact assessments carried out by the Commission; - moreover, amendments by Parliament or Council to EU legislative proposals should be subject to a full impact assessment if they significantly alter the original. �