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Article 17 [The European Commission]

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Abstract

The European Commission today still remains the most difficult organisation to define among the European institutions. The comment highlights the role of this Institution: much more than an administrative structure but (much) less than an “executive” as we meet in MS. In any case, an essential political-constitutional subject of the institutional framework of the Union. The comment analyzes essential competences of the Commission (with special refer to the legislative procedure), its composition, relationships between its members and those between the Commission and other European Institutions, especially the most important interlocutor for the Commission future development: the European Parliament.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In such treaties the textual reference to the general interest of the Community was not, furthermore, missing, but came out in the specification of the duties of conduct of the members of the Commission (Art. 9 ECSC; Art. 155.2 EEC (1957); Art. 213.2 EC-Nice): a duty referred to the Commissioners (extendible, in an implicit but indirect way, to the entire institution) and understood more as a negative limitation to the exercise of powers than as a power of positive promotion, according to what is set down in Art. 17.1 TEU. The current formulation has its precedents in Art. 25 of the draft TCE and in Art. I-26 TCE. Its newness is highlighted by Martenczuk, in Grabitz et al. (2011), Art. 17 para 10.

  2. 2.

    Ruffert, in Calliess and Ruffert (2011), Art. 17 para 2.

  3. 3.

    On the application of such model to the Union’s legal system, see among others, Pollack (1997); Thatcher and Stone Sweet (2002); Tallberg (2002). For Majone (2001), the margin of self-determination entrusted to the Commission (just as—and even more so—to the CJEU) is such as to consider the very Principal-Agent model inadequate and claims to make reference to the model of total trust devolution defined as trusteeship model. The more limited freedom of action of the Commission with respect to the Court of Justice is, nonetheless, duly dealt with by Tallberg (2000).

  4. 4.

    For the co-presence in the institutional design and the history of the Commission of both these inspirations, see, for all, Mangiameli (2012), p. 110.

  5. 5.

    For the usability of such notion in the European experience, despite the apparent paradox which involves the reference to an elaborate concept concerning constitutional law of state origin, see Mangiameli (2008a), p. 213 et seq. See also Cervati (2000), p. 74–76, for the need “not to burn one’s bridges with the culture of constitutional law” renouncing the application of a conceptual category—that of the form of government—born with reference to state constitutional law but which cannot be confined to the context of Staatsrecht. In Italian literature among the first to apply the notion to the European context, see Pinelli (1989), p. 315 et seqq.

    Ronchetti (2003), p. 198, is critical of the usability of the notion, on the basis of the—debatable—necessary correspondence between the notion of form of state and government and sovereignty. More recently, see, for the same approach, especially Luciani (2010).

  6. 6.

    See, in particular, Schmitt (1932–1963) the essay “Das Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen und Entpolitisierungen” and corollary 1 “Übersicht über die verschiedenen Bedeutungen und Funktionen des Begriffes der innerpolitischen Neutralität des Staates”.

  7. 7.

    In FN 4 to the essay Das Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen und Entpolitisierungen (in the 1963 edition), in a bibliographical reference, Schmitt explicitly likens European integration to a neutralisation process. For a stimulating approach to the theme of European integration, analysed from the perspective of C. Schmitt’s doctrine, in comparison with R. Smend, see Pernice (1995), p. 100 et seqq.

  8. 8.

    Peterson and Birdsall (2008), p. 68.

  9. 9.

    See, in strictly critical terms, Majone (2011), p. 26 et seqq. On the limits of integration by stealth, see also Tsakatika (2005), p. 201, referring to the limits of a merely empirical legitimation.

  10. 10.

    See Haas (1958) p. 308, who underlines how the EEC Treaty “is one of the rare federative agreements which leaves its own central organs—as distinguished from the member states acting singly—a tremendous degree of discretionary power. Witness art. 235”. For the most ad hoc literature, see also Hallstein (1965), p. 25. A specific reflection on the institutive Treaties as framework treaties within the theoretical model of the principal-agent, and the trusteeship model is present in Majone (2001), p. 113 et seqq. For the definition of the Treaty of Rome as an “an imperfect contract” that is limited to defining in general terms, “objectives, institutions and procedure”, see Dehousse (2011a), p. 6.

  11. 11.

    Mangiameli (2012), p. 93 et seq.

  12. 12.

    For the enunciation of these, see Diedrichs and Wessels (2006), p. 210 et seqq.

  13. 13.

    Specifically on the role of the Commission within a wider general reconstruction, see Sandholtz and Stone Sweet (2010), p. 12 et seqq., who highlight the power of legislative initiative, that of the activation of procedures concerning sanctions before the Court of Justice and the adoption of binding directives with regard to the protection of competition as “important trusteeship powers”.

  14. 14.

    On the position of the Commission in a reconstruction of an intergovernmental type, see Moravcsik (1993), p. 511 et seq., with reference to the delegation of the agenda-setting power by the MS to the Commission and Moravcsik (2005), p. 362 et seq., criticising the actual importance of informative asymmetry between Commission and MS and in general highlighting that “disproportionate scholarly attention has been paid to a relatively small number of categories of policy-making in which the Commission has exploited unexpected autonomy to proactively promote integration within its ‘everyday’ legislative and regulatory functions”.

    For an interesting comparison—also from a methodological point of view –between the two layouts (even if, it seems to the writer, with a slight preference for the intergovernmental one) with precise references to the Commission, see Puchala (1999).

  15. 15.

    On this point, see the sharp analysis, today in part greatly used, by Pescatore (1978).

  16. 16.

    The extreme outcome of such approach is to be found in Fabbrini (2009), pp. 358–361, by which the Union would represent a political-constitutional system without a government institution, understood as an institution able to take a peremptory decision. Prior to this, for the configuration of the Union as an international structure of governance but without government, see Caporaso (1996), p. 33

    For the thesis of the tripartition of executive power of the Union between Commission, Council and European Council, see recently Curtin (2009), p. 66.

  17. 17.

    One cannot but refer with regard to this to the Hallstein and Delors Commissions and more controversially to the Roy Jenkins Commission. For the distinction between strong and weak Commissions (and Presidencies of Commissions), see Peterson (1999), p. 49 et seqq.

  18. 18.

    For the definition see, for all, Schmitter (1969), p. 162.

  19. 19.

    Recently exemplified by the Santer Commission and in a more debatable way by the Prodi Commission. For the identification of the resignation of the Santer Commission as the nadir point in the history of the Commission and for an opinion on the ups and downs of the Prodi Commission, see Peterson (2006), p. 504 et seq. For the period prior to this, examples of weak Commissions are to found in the Presidencies of Malfatti, Ortoli and Thorn. On this point, see Peterson (1999), p. 49 et seq.

  20. 20.

    The alternation between these two basic inspirations is highlighted, also with reference to the events during the 1960s of the Commission, by Neunreither (1973).

  21. 21.

    The point is stressed particularly effectively by Nugent (2001), p. 324 and Nugent (2010), pp. 122–137.

  22. 22.

    Ruffert, in Calliess and Ruffert (2011), Art. 17 para 3.

  23. 23.

    The Commission’s role of guardian of law of the Commission and its position of trustee with respect to the MS is highlighted by Majone (2001), p. 115.

  24. 24.

    On the expansive logic of sector integration that leads from ECSC Treaty to EEC Treaty and then to further developments of the integration process, especially with regard to the United Kingdom, see Haas (1958), Ch. 8. The subject of the spill-over in the Community expansion process of the competences is obviously particularly dealt with in detail by the scholars upholding a neo-functionalist perspective: see in fact Stone Sweet and Sandholtz (1997), p. 301; Sandholtz and Stone Sweet (2010), p. 8. For an intergovernmental interpretation, see instead, Moravcsik (2005), p. 352.

  25. 25.

    Ruffert, in Calliess and Ruffert (2011), Art. 17 para 10; Savino (2006), p. 1042. In jurisprudence. see, for example Case 247/87, Star Fruit Company s.a. v Commission (ECJ 14 February 1989).

  26. 26.

    This is the divide et conquer argument which Schmidt (2000), p. 44 et seqq. develops with regard to the Commission’s power to begin an infringement procedure in the field of competition protection “leading eventually to a Court ruling if the government concerned does not respond to the requests”.

  27. 27.

    Exemplary, with regard to this, is the decision given in Case 120/78, Rewe v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein (Cassis de Dijon) (ECJ 20 February 1979).

  28. 28.

    For the highlighting of this circular report, Patrono (2003), pp. 68–72 and pp. 76–81. See also Tallberg (2002), p. 34, making use of the smaller number of checks (meaning the term in the Principal-Agent logic) that weigh on the Court of Justice with respect to the Commission and, recently, Schmidt (2011), p. 43 et seqq.

  29. 29.

    To the point of speaking, not without a certain emphasis, of a Leviathan for which a bending intervention is necessary: see Brent (1995).

  30. 30.

    On the applicability of the principles of the rule of law to the Union’s legal system, which is consecrated at jurisprudential level in the famous Case 294/83, Les Verts v Parliament (ECJ 23 April 1986), see Gianfrancesco (2006).

  31. 31.

    See Coombes (1970), who had already outlined the decline of the Commission, linking it to an insufficient development of the institution’s political legitimation, before the growing competences of the same.

  32. 32.

    For the Union’s legal system Art. 314 TFEU entrusts the approval of the annual budget to a special legislative procedure.

  33. 33.

    For a framework of the new elements of the Treaty of Lisbon on the point, see Bassanini and Salvemini (2010), p. 67 et seqq.

  34. 34.

    See Amico di Meane (2010), p. 125 et seqq.

  35. 35.

    Della Cananea (2003), p. 1800 et seq.

  36. 36.

    Della Cananea (2003), p. 1823 et seqq.

  37. 37.

    The composite nature of the administration serving the Commission has been highlighted for some time in academic literature. For the outlining of a “silo-problem” affecting the Commission’s Directorates General which, despite the reforms of the Kinnock era, find it difficult to integrate, see Bauer (2008), p. 641 et seq. Prior to this, on the heterogeneous nature of the administrative organisation of the Commission and its officers, see Hooghe (2001), p. 23; Peterson (1999), p. 49. The Commission’s “pillarised and fragmented organisation” which inevitably brings about a dispersion of potential is highlighted also by Kassim (2008), p. 652 who nevertheless delineates the positive results introduced by the Kinnock reforms. For an analysis of the changes introduced by such reforms, see also Bauer (2010) and Bauer (2011).

    To this order of problems is added the hybrid nature that has always been highlighted in the Commission, split between college (and Cabinets serving the Commissioners) and permanent services. From this point of view, see Spence (2006a, b); Spence and Stevens (2006); Peterson (2008), p. 762 and, for the recent attempts to overcome this structure, Egeberg and Heskestad (2010) and Ellinas and Suleiman (2011). Bauer (2011) highlights an important factor of stabilisation of the European Commission bureaucracy in last years: the prevalence of a “opportunity model” (for what concerns personal careers) toward the management changes, like in every bureaucracy.

  38. 38.

    See, in general, Chiti (2006), p. 165 et seqq. who outlines the character of alternative instrument to a model of centralised administration of the Commission (p. 165). It is pointed out how the typology of the agencies present in the Union system today appears considerably differentiated. With regard to this, Curtin (2009) p. 148, reasons on three Agency generations (for a list, → Art. 13 para 33). Hofmann (2009), p. 501 highlights the insufficient attention of the TEU even after Lisbon to the subject of the Agencies that find their discipline exclusively in the secondary law of the Union, often with no adequate valorisation of the Commission’s role. From the constitutionalist point of view, the most important is undoubtedly the Agency for Fundamental Rights, with regard to which, see Cartabia et al. (2009), p. 531 et seq., as well as von Bogdandy and Bernstoff, (2009), p. 1035 et seqq.

  39. 39.

    Mangiameli (2008b), p. 267 et seqq. And therein various hypotheses. See also Craig (2000), p. 112, with reference to the problems that the shared management brought about in the experience of the Commission in the 1990s; Hofmann (2009), p. 498 and Curtin (2009), p. 166 et seq. In this comment it is possible only to outline to the new forms of (non-formal) administration and governance in European Commission. I refer in particular to the Open Method of Coordination (OMC): see, on this theme, European Governance: a White Paper, COM (2001) 428 final. Among scholars, see Wincott (2001) about the White Paper and Martinico (2009) for a general analysis. For a positive evaluation about compatibility of OMC with the “Community method”, see recently Zeitlin (2011). Negative, on the contrary, Majone (2011), p. 33.

  40. 40.

    Comitology constitutes one of the forms of control in the Principal-Agent logic: see Majone (2001), p. 114, Tallberg (2002), p. 30.

  41. 41.

    See the Commission Communication of 11 December 2002 on the institutional architecture, COM(2002) 728 final and, before that, in the context of the European Convention, the final report of working group IX on simplification of 29 November 2002 CONV 424/02.

  42. 42.

    On this not too simple distinction, see Driessen (2010), p. 845 et seqq, with references to the EU jurisprudence on comitology.

  43. 43.

    Craig (2011), p. 673.

  44. 44.

    Craig. (2011), p. 675. As Craig (2010), p. 279 highlights a large recourse to the procedure in Art. 291 TFEU would make the victory of the Parliament on the subject of delegated act “a Pyrrhic Victory”.

  45. 45.

    On its not too easy application, see Craig (2008), p. 117.

  46. 46.

    The importance of the requirements of sunset clause, revoke option and objection power of the EP in the cases of delegation are underlined by Hofmann (2009), p. 492. See also the Commission’s interpretation on the point in the Commission Communication of 9 December 2009, Implementation of Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, COM(2009) 673 final, p. 7 et seqq. as well as the EP Resolution of 5 May 2010, P7_TA(2010)127.

  47. 47.

    Seen as decisive by Craig (2008), p. 116 et seq. Analogously Hofmann (2009), p. 488 et seq. who stresses the importance of an adequate jurisprudential definition of the notion of essentialness in accordance with Art. 290 TFEU, just as the differential criteria between Art. 290 and Art. 291 TFEU.

  48. 48.

    With regard to which, for a recent critical recognition, see VV.AA. (2009).

  49. 49.

    For the assimilation of the work method of the Commission in the case of delegated acts with respect to proposals of legislative acts, in both cases hinged on recourse to working groups of international experts, and therefore, for a downsizing, from a general point of view, of the differences between the typologies of acts, see Ponzano (2008), p. 106 et seq.

  50. 50.

    Parliament/Council Regulation No. 182/2011 of 16 February 2001 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers, O.J. L 55/13 (2011).

  51. 51.

    Of a “magic phrase”, or even a “Delphic phrase”, Craig (2011), p. 678 et seq., writes scathingly.

  52. 52.

    Heritier (2012), p. 48.

  53. 53.

    See Nugent for clarity on this point 2010, p. 371. For the fixing of the common customs tariff, see Art. 18 and following of the institutive EEC Treaty in its original formulation (1957). For the definition of a common trade policy, see Art. 110 et seqq. EEC.

  54. 54.

    See Art. 113.3 EEC (1957) and Art. 207 TFEU.

  55. 55.

    See Art. 130 EEC Treaty introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht, now Art. 208 TFEU.

  56. 56.

    Art. 310 EC, now Art. 217 TFEU.

  57. 57.

    See Hallstein, p. 738: “the Commission is seen as the Community’s agent in relations with the outside world”.

  58. 58.

    Subject of the pioneering reflection by Pescatore (1961).

  59. 59.

    Starting from the famous ruling Case 22/70, Commission v. Council (AETR) (ECJ 31 March 1971).

  60. 60.

    For further references, see Gianfrancesco (2011), p. 218 et seqq.

  61. 61.

    Spence (2006c), p. 379 and footnote 19.

  62. 62.

    Art. 2 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure.

  63. 63.

    This is the incisive definition of one of the masters of Italian constitutional law: Esposito (1961), p. 325, who stresses how the constitutional lacunas in which the conventions and customs intervene often have a historical and concrete nature, or they are affirmed despite a rule appearing to be in force (p. 328 et seq.). The observation is valid also for the “lacunas” in the institutional system of the Union and for the affirmation in such areas of conventions and customs.

  64. 64.

    Doubts on the assimilability of the inter-institutional agreements into constitutional conventions are expressed by Ronchetti (2003), p. 50, on the basis of the juridically non-binding nature of the agreements in question. For an explicit reference to the constitutional conventions see Driessen (2008) (with the warning that “inter-institutional conventions in the European Union [are] a different animal than its counterparts in Westminster” [p. 556]).

  65. 65.

    From the first agreements of 1964 (Luns I procedure), relative to the negotiation procedure of the association and cooperation undersigned by the Community.

  66. 66.

    As highlighted by Kietz and Maurer (2007).

  67. 67.

    Ronchetti (2003), p. 8 et seqq.; Kietz and Maurer (2007), p. 21 et seqq.

  68. 68.

    For the purposes of the question regarding the political course of the Union, the Court of Justice is of less importance.

  69. 69.

    For a framework of the such agreements, from that of Plumb-Delors of 1988 (EP Doc 123.217), to the 2006 one relative to the modification of the Council’s 1999 ruling on Comitology and introductory to the “regulatory procedure with scrutiny”, see Kietz and Maurer (2007), p. 29.

  70. 70.

    Among which, see, in particular, the inter-institutional agreement of 2000, O.J. C 121 (2001), permitting the start of the Prodi Commission. For this point, see Ronchetti (2003), p. 14 et seqq. This agreement was followed by another in 2005, O.J. C 117E/125 (2005), containing specific provisions dedicated to the question of conflict of interests and to the substitution of the Commissioners during the mandate of the Commission (section II; para 2, 6 and 7). For a framework of the agreements with regard to the Commission–Parliament relations, see again Kietz and Maurer (2007), p. 42 et seqq.

  71. 71.

    But for a different approach, concerned with the absorption of the Commission by the EP, see recently, Weiler (2010), p. 810 et seq.

  72. 72.

    See Ronchetti (2003), p. 31 et seqq. Driessen (2008), p. 551 et seqq., who asserts the existence of legally (by hard or soft law) and politically binding inter-institutional agreements. The latter category generates inter-institutional conventions.

  73. 73.

    And the Commission to any other International Organisation Secretariat, as highlighted by O’Sullivan (2000), p. 723; Curtin (2009), p. 61; Dehousse (2011a), p. 5. Majone (2011), p. 23, referring to the White Paper on Governance, recalls how the Community method is based on three fundamental elements: independence of the Commission; its monopoly of the legislative initiative and role of the Court of Justice. See also Devuyst (2007–2008) for the emphasis of the essentialness of the Commission for the realisation of the Community method, in turn an essential element of the institutional balance of the Union.

  74. 74.

    Ponzano et al. (2012), p. 6.

  75. 75.

    See Hallstein (1965), p. 781; Noel (1973), p. 130.

  76. 76.

    On this point, see above all Pollack (1997), p. 121 and, for the situation following the Treaty of Amsterdam, Pollack (1999).

  77. 77.

    The importance of the most proposed package operations is diffused among scholars: see Schmitter (1969), p. 163; Noel (1973), p. 131; Tallberg (2000), p. 849. With particular reference to the linkage realised within the Council of the proposals put forward by the Commission, see König and Junge (2011), p. 82 et seqq.

  78. 78.

    The importance of the mobilisation of pressure groups affected by the integration process is already highlighted by Haas (1958), p. 313. On the characteristic engranage of the Monnet method, aimed at realising a capture of interest groups and elites in the decisional procedures of the High Authority of the ECSC, see Featherstone (1994), p. 155.

  79. 79.

    For the valorisation of the instruments of participative democracy that make the dialogue of the Commission with civil society possible, see Chieffi (2007), p. 197, which refers to Art. I-47 TCE (now Art. 11 TEU), relative to the legislative initiative of citizens. For the enforcement of the provision, see Parliament/Council Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 of 16 February 2011 on the citizens’ initiative, O.J. L 65/1 (2011) and, including, Art. 10 on the absence of a duty by the Commission to proceed to the act of initiative.

  80. 80.

    The new elements of the explicit recognition in the Treaty of a Vorschlagsmonopol to the Commission is highlighted by Martenczuk, in Grabitz et al. (2011), Art. 17 para 50.

  81. 81.

    In this sense, see Temple Lang and Gallagher (2005), critical of the modifications of the Treaties that have progressively altered this balance.

  82. 82.

    See Temple Lang (2002), p. 1612 et seq.; Devuyst (2007–2008), p. 265; Ponzano et al. (2012).

  83. 83.

    Diedrichs and Wessels (2006), p. 221; Adam and Tizzano (2010), p. 175.

  84. 84.

    For which see the recent analysis by Ponzano et al. (2012), p. 8 et seqq.

  85. 85.

    With regard to this, Edwards (2006), p. 9 speaks of a trigger mechanism which has frequently allowed the Council and EP to undermine or usurp the power of agenda setting of the Commission.

  86. 86.

    Protocol on application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality

  87. 87.

    Ponzano et al. (2012), p. 12 et seq.

  88. 88.

    For the examination of the various legislative procedures, see Corbett et al. (2011), p. 232 et seqq.

  89. 89.

    The importance of such passage is highlighted by Crombez and Hix (2011), p. 292, p. 304 et seqq. An analysis of the consequences of the voting rules in Council after the Treaty of Nice in Moberg (2002) and Tsebelis and Yataganas (2002): the latter authors stress the point the Treaty of Nice makes Council decisions more difficult and, consequently, increases the role of this institution in the decision-making, in respect to EP and Commission (which gains importance as bureaucracy). The effects on the Commission descending from QMV in the Council (in defining Commissioner’s winning positions) are analysed by Thomson (2008). For what concerns extension of QMV in the Treaty of Amsterdam, connected with redistributing Commission positions, see—in the perspective of Liberal intergovernamentalism-Moravcsik and Nicolaȉdis (1999).

  90. 90.

    Among others, see Tsebelis and Garret (2000), p. 25 et seq.; Rasmussen (2003), p. 5; Burns (2004), p. 14; Crombez and Hix (2011), p. 299 et seq., the latter outlining however, the importance of political agreement or not between Commission and Parliament.

  91. 91.

    The Commission can amend the proposal (not replace it with a different one) in any moment of the procedure, as long as the Council has not acted, and it is not requested citation of the amendment: see Case C-280/93, Germany v Council (ECJ 5 October 1994) para 36–38.

    It is useful to remind too that the duty to consult the EP in the course of the legislative procedure, in the cases provided for by the Treaty, includes a requirement that the Parliament be re-consulted on each occasion when the text finally adopted, viewed as a whole, departs substantially from the text on which the Parliament has already been consulted, except where the amendments essentially correspond to the wishes of the Parliament itself: see Case C-388/92, Parliament v Council (ECJ 1 June 1994) para 10.

  92. 92.

    And this also when the Council approves the position during the first reading of the Parliament which however differs from the proposal of the Commission: see on this point, for the interpretation of Art. 293 TFEU, Adam and Tizzano (2010), p. 183.

  93. 93.

    Borras (2007). See also Rasmussen (2003) and Burns (2004) p. 6 et seqq. which illustrates how in some cases the abuse by the Commission of its position of gate-keeper has had negative consequences for the Commission itself.

  94. 94.

    On the lesser evil strategy, see Schmidt (2000), p. 50 et seqq. The importance of the blocking minorities in the Council made possible by the QMV vote is highlighted by Burns (2004), p. 13. For the capacity of the Commission to direct the choices in the Council making use of those MS that can determine the reaching of the QMV or the blocking minority and which, for this reason, are defined as pivots, see also Crombez and Hix (2011), p. 306, with reference to the experience of the post-Maastricht Commissions. See also the authors quoted at footnote 89 for what concerns problems arising from QMV criteria adopted in the Treaty of Nice.

  95. 95.

    For the first reading, see Rules 53–59, and therein various provisions of temporal delay of voting and requests for opinion to the Commission on the amendments in voting; for the second reading, see in particular, Rules 63.5 and 66.5, even though both in empowering terms.

    For an analysis of the legislative decision of co-decision within the Parliament with attention to the regulatory provisions, see Vosa (2009a, b). In Vosa (2009a), p. 11, see also an interesting defence of the role of parliamentary law applies to the European legal system.

  96. 96.

    See Rules 67–69 of the EP’s Rules of Procedure and annex “Code of conduct for negotiating in the context of the ordinary legislative procedures”.

  97. 97.

    On the subject of the early agreements and their capacity to influence the Union’s institutional balance, the academic literature is very wide. With particular reference to the position of the Commission, see, among others, Farrel and Heritier (2003); Rasmussen (2007); Heritier and Reh (2009); Reh et al. (2010).

    The “efficiency” of the early agreements is shown by the percentage of legislative procedures that are concluded in the first reading; a percentage that in 2009 was recorded as 86% of the total (Reh et al. (2010), p. 2 et seqq.). The “saving in transaction costs” implicit in the recourse to fast-track legislation is highlighted by Heritier (2012), p. 41 et. seqq.

  98. 98.

    Farrel and Heritier (2004) p. 1198 et seqq.; Häge (2011). According to some reconstructions (Thomson and Hosli (2006), p. 413) it is the Council, however, that is the greatest beneficiary in the “recent legislative decision-making”.

  99. 99.

    Farrel and Heritier (2004), p. 1200 et seqq.; Rasmussen (2010), esp. p. 61 for an overall re-reading of the subject. Interesting considerations on the aggregation of the majorities within the Parliament in the legislative procedure being examined, in relation to the consistency of the political groups in Naurin and Rasmussen (2011) and, especially, in Yordanova (2011). Specific attention to the role of the Parliamentary Commissions that are presented as the place in which the early agreements can be quickly defined in Settembri and Neuhold (2009), espec. p. 146.

    A reflection on the subject, aimed at reducing the borderline areas of the practice was carried out by the Conference of Committee Chairs of the Parliament in autumn 2010. On this point, see Corbett et al. (2011), p. 245.

  100. 100.

    The Commission as loser in the relations network with Parliament and Council which are more and more frequently carried out in an informal sphere (and the co-decision procedure constitutes an example of this) and the assumption by the Parliament of a role of rival, rather than of ally of the Commission, is dealt with by Stacey p. 939 and p. 950.

  101. 101.

    Schmidt (2000), p. 56.

  102. 102.

    These conclusions are also reached by Adam and Tizzano (2010), p. 177; Martenczuk, in Grabitz et al. (2011), Art. 17 para 64 et seqq. See also, in this sense Case 188/85, Fediol v Commission (ECJ 14 July 1988).

  103. 103.

    The fact that the commitment of the Commission to withdraw the proposals rejected by the Parliament in the co-decision procedure is equivalent to “a new de facto power”, was highlighted by Stacey (2003), p. 942, with reference to the then Code of Conduct of 1995.

  104. 104.

    On the important recent fact of the synchronised terms of Commission and Parliament in the Treaty of Maastricht, see Westlake (1998), p. 442.

  105. 105.

    Expression to be understood with due care as previously described in the text in para 5.

  106. 106.

    The coherent conclusion by Karagiannis (2000), p. 50 is that “le président n’est pas le socle sur lequel repose juridiquement la Commission; autrement, la procedure de l’art. 215 [ex 159], al 3 relative au remplacement di préesident—sans remplacement paralléel des autres commissaires—n’aurait aucun sens”.

  107. 107.

    Thus, for the Italian experience, Ambrosi, in Bartole and Bin (2008), Art. 94, p. 856 and further references therein.

  108. 108.

    For the retaining of “full powers” by members of Santer Commission who have resigned, until they were replaced in the office, see Case 219/99 British Airways plc v.Commission (CFI 17 December 2003) para 56.

  109. 109.

    On the essentialness of the Commission—and its independence—in the institutional design of J. Monnet, see, for all, Featherstone (1994).

  110. 110.

    About lobbying in the EU, see recently, in comparative perspective, Petrillo (2011).

  111. 111.

    For the close connection between configuration of the Commission, even in its composition, and Community method, see Temple Lang (2002).

  112. 112.

    Section II, para 2, 6 and 7.

  113. 113.

    Section II, para 3 and 4.

  114. 114.

    Asking the commissioners’ code of conduct to discipline the participation of the members of the Commission in electoral campaigns. The code of conduct for commissioners is known by the acronym C (2011) 2904.

  115. 115.

    On the events leading up to the crisis and the resignation of the Santer Commission, see Tomkins (1999). The basic problems that the President of the Commission Santer had to face in the relations with his Commission and his Commissioners are accurately dealt with by Peterson (1999). A positive element in the event is highlighted by Chaltiel (2004), p. 630, according to whom “la nuit du 15 au 16 mars 1999 pouvait déjà apparaȋtre comme un moment démocratique. En effet, alors même que le Parlment menaçait de renverser la Commission Santer, celle-ci décide de dèmissioner collectivement”.

  116. 116.

    On the Cresson affaire, see the final point in Case C-432/04, Commission v Edith Cresson (ECJ 11 July 2006).

  117. 117.

    Spence (2006a), p. 35. On the point, see anyway van Miert (1973), p. 261 et seq.

  118. 118.

    For what concerns the selection of Commissioners, see the analysis of Wonka (2007), who emphasises the “driver’s seat” of MS governments in the Commission appointments (p. 173), in a logic of defensive and offensive selection goals related to the MS interest (p. 174). This analysis become more complex and variegate in Wonka (2008), referred to decision-making process: the national agent and portfolio scenarios are selected as the most appropriated to describe Commissioners behaviour. See also Thomson (2008) for the correspondence between Commission position and the position of the home MS of the Commissioner responsible for drafting the legislative proposal under QMV. More prominence to the portfolio scenario is given in Egeberg (2006), who emphasizes the logic of socializations and mutual relationship promoted by collegial dimension of the institution.

  119. 119.

    As stressed by Döring (2007).

  120. 120.

    And verifiable in more than one Commission. For the case of the Santer Commission, see Peterson (1999), p. 53.

  121. 121.

    See Art. 148.2 EEC in its original formulation.

  122. 122.

    By means of the provision in Art. 157.1 EEC, according to which some states could have two Commissioners instead of only one.

  123. 123.

    Featherstone (1994), p. 167.

  124. 124.

    Protocol on the institutions with the prospect of the enlargement of the European Union, Art. 1.

  125. 125.

    The Commission in its Opinion pursuant to Art. 48 of the Treaty on the Conference of representatives (COM(2003) 548 final of 17 September 2003) defines the solution of the Convention complicated, muddled and inoperable, able to “affect the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Commission” as a result of the introduction of “first” and “second” category Members of the Commission (I.2). Alternatively, the Commission proposes the valorisation of Groups of Commissioners, able to guarantee collegiality and consistency of policy and whose discipline should be mainly contained in the rules of procedure of the Institution (I.4). Analogously, prior to this, see Commission Communication of 11 December 2002, For the European Union. Peace, Freedom, Solidarity, COM(2000) 728 final/2, p. 19. The reduced room for manoeuvre of the Commission in the European Convention in enforcing its positions, owing to the very work method of the Convention is highlighted by Christiansen and Gray (2003), p. 16 et seqq.

  126. 126.

    Mattera (2003), p. 7 et seqq.; Ponzano (2004), p. 502 and 511; Spence (2006a), p. 58 et seqq.

  127. 127.

    Ponzano (2004), p. 508 et seqq., even if the author poses the problem of the functionality of a Commission with 35 components (p. 513). For an accurate reconstruction of the functioning modalities of a 27 member Commission, which confutes the forecast of a paralysis in its working, see Grassi (2009). On the low rate of conflictuality within the Commission, see also Savino (2006), p. 1046 et seq.

  128. 128.

    Doc. 17271/1/08 of 13 February 2009.

  129. 129.

    Doc. 11225/2/09 Rev 2 of 10 July 2009.

  130. 130.

    About this growing political role of the Commission, see, among others, Peterson (2003), p. 20.

  131. 131.

    Peterson (1999), p. 48. And moreover, as Spence (2006a), p. 29 effectively writes, “running a ship with several former captains in the crew clearly requires the real captain to be more than primus inter pares”.

  132. 132.

    In reality, the recourse to more or less wide consultations for the identification of the President of the Commission has always characterised the European experience: see van Miert (1973), p. 264.

  133. 133.

    Thus marking a communitarisation of the procedure of choice of the President of the Commission. On this point, see Georgopoulos and Lefèvre (2001), p. 598 et seqq. The choice of the qualified majority is to be offered evidently in relation with the enlargement of the Union and the need to avoid dangerous situations of deadlock deriving from decisions to be adopted unanimously. Nonetheless this takes on a value of important principle, determining the weakening of the strictly intergovernmental and diplomatic logic.

  134. 134.

    On the interpretative problems of such formula considered in itself, even following the different linguistic variants of the Treaty, see in fact, with reference to the Treaty of Amsterdam, Karagiannis (2000), p. 37 et seqq. which makes a juxtaposition above all with the “Richtlinien der Politik” of the German Federal Chancellor as in Art. 65 GG, to nevertheless reach the conclusion of the need “d’affranchir le droit communautaire des influences nationales” (p. 45). For the conclusion that, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the principle of collegiality remains at the basis of the community system, see p. 54 et seq.

  135. 135.

    The circumstance by which such solution draws its foundation from an already existing provision in the rules of procedure of the Commission is highlighted by Georgopoulos and Lefèvre (2001), p. 603, also in this case attempting a juxtaposition with the position of the chief of the executive in France and Germany. Not unlike what was emphasised in the previous footnote, the conclusion is that “une telle assimilation serait par trop optimiste, l’intervention du président étant fréquemment limitée par la nécessité d’obtenir l’aval du collége des commisaires” (p. 604). For the reference to the pre-existing regulation discipline, see also Sico (2001), p. 825.

  136. 136.

    Such solution is appreciated by Mistò (2003), p. 223 as “équilibre raisonnable et sans équivoce” between presidential principle, on the one hand, and collegial nature of the Commission on the other.

  137. 137.

    Valorised by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice: see, in fact, among others, Case 5/85, AKZO Chemie v Commission (ECJ 23 September 1986); Case C-137/92 P, Commission v BASF AG et al. (ECJ 15 June 1994); Case C-1/00, Commission v France (ECJ 13 December 2001).

  138. 138.

    Even if it is always a matter of an “indirectly-indirectly elected” President, as Craig (2010), p. 90, ironically points out.

  139. 139.

    For the examination of this type of problem in the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam, see Karagiannis (2000), p. 18 et seqq.

  140. 140.

    The European Council Decision 2010/80/EU of 9 February 2010 on the appointment of the Barroso II Commission, O.J. L 38/7 (2010) to considering No. 8 uses the formula “The Commission should therefore be appointed” which suggests a certain duty in fulfilment. Analogously, it must be said for the German version: “Die Kommission sollte somit ernannt werden”. A certain discordance with the other linguistic versions is to be noted. In particular, if the Italian one is considered which uses a much more problematic expression: “It is opportune to proceed with the appointment of the Commission” and the French one: “Il convient donc de pròceder…”

  141. 141.

    See the already mentioned Case 5/85, AKZO Chemie v Commission (ECJ 23 September 1986).

  142. 142.

    Parliament–Commission Inter-institutional agreement of 5 July 2000, point No. 10. On the “lex Prodi”, see. Sico (2001), p. 826, which also recalls some acts of the Commission directed at presidential competence, without the intervention of the college, of the power being examined: Commission Opinion, adapting the institutions to make a success of enlargement, COM(2000) 34 final and Commission Communication to the Intergovernmental Conference on the reform of the institutions, COM(2000) 771 final. See also Magnette (2001), p. 306.

  143. 143.

    C(2000) 3614 in the version of 16 November 2011.

  144. 144.

    On the actual work practice within the Commission, see Grassi (2009).

  145. 145.

    See Spence (2006a), p. 60 et seqq.; Egeberg and Heskestad (2010).

  146. 146.

    On the presence of these three principles in Art. 65 GG, see Pieroth, in Jarass and Peroth (2011), Art. 65, p. 773. For the efficiency of analogous inspirations in the Italian constitutional norms dedicated to the government (Art. 92–95 Const.), see Ambrosi, in Bartole and Bin (2008), Art. 95, p. 864.

  147. 147.

    See, among others, Magnette (2001), p. 294; Ronchetti (2001), p. 203; Spence (2006a), p. 34. A “special partnership” between Parliament and Commission is mentioned in the EP resolution of 9 February 2010 relative to the undersigning of the general policy agreement with the Commssion, P7_TA(2010)0009.

  148. 148.

    On the basis on the well known mistrust of Charles De Gaulle towards a body considered an aeropage technique apatride et irresponsable (Le Monde, 11 September 1965, p. 2).

  149. 149.

    2.3.5 of the Declaration, in Bull. EC, No. 6/1983, p. 26.

  150. 150.

    On the strategy of competence enlargement realised by the EP by means of the norms of its own regulations, see Ronchetti (2003), p. 217.

  151. 151.

    O.J. L 304 (2010). It is interesting to see how the EP, in its resolution of 9 February 2010 relative to the undersigning of the general policy agreement with the Commission underlines how the collaboration between the two Institutions is essential for the success of the “Community method”.

  152. 152.

    Refer to para 85 for the point of the agreement concerning the legislative procedure.

  153. 153.

    This anomaly must be highlighted of a relevant dyscrasia between the absolute majority needed for the election of the President of the Commission and the simple majority needed from the Commission for the initial consent foreseen by Art. 17 TEU on the one hand, and the majority of two thirds of those present and the majority of the components foreseen by Art. 234 TFEU for the approval of the censure motion, on the other. This form of rigidity that seems to go beyond the contexts of the stabilisation clauses of the majority not unknown to the national constitutional experiences. The difficult referrabilty of the European parliamentary experience to the paradigms of forms of classical parliamentary experience, examined under the profile of the voting conduct of MEPs at the moment of confidence votes in the broad sense with regard to the Commission, owing to the link with national political forces of belonging is highlighted by Hix and Lord (1996) and Magnette (2001), p. 304 et seqq.

  154. 154.

    See Reh (2009), p. 638. In the opposite sense, for the upholding in the institutional design of the Union of a separation between executive and legislative, see Fabbrini (2009); Kreppel (2009).

  155. 155.

    As underlined by Magnette (2001), p. 297, highly critical of the possibility of returning the European experience to the “mirage of parliamentarism”. The legitimacy of the hearings is questioned by a number of scholars who see in it an element of fragmentation of the unitary complex structure of the Commission: see Mistò (2003), p. 214; Carbone et al. (2010), p. 275. For a severe critic about the weakening of principle of collegiality (and consequently indipendence) in recent developments affecting the Commission, see Temple Lang & Gallagher (2002), p. 1024.

  156. 156.

    See Spence (2006a), p. 37; Corbett et al. (2011), p. 295. On the troubled parliamentary process that led to the consent to the Barroso I Commission, see also Ronchetti (2004).

  157. 157.

    See Corbett et al. (2011), p. 296.

  158. 158.

    The importance assumed by the hearings procedure is nevertheless undoubted: as outlined by Horspool and Humphreys (2008), p. 50 “this informal power for the Parliament has proved much more effective than the ‘sledgehammer’ power to dismiss the entire Commission”.

  159. 159.

    Dehousse (2011b), p. 199 et seqq.

  160. 160.

    Reference to a “pendulum theory” Peterson (2006), p. 510 et seqq.

  161. 161.

    This is also demonstrated by Peterson (2006), p. 511. For a critical evaluation of the results achieved by the Commission in the Treaty of Lisbon, see Christiansen and Gray (2003).

  162. 162.

    Metcalfe (2000), p. 822.

  163. 163.

    For this observation Diedrichs and Wessels (2006), p. 225; Bribosia (2008), p. 78.

  164. 164.

    On this point see Devuyst (2007–2008), p. 317.

  165. 165.

    According to the definition by Thym (2004), p. 21.

  166. 166.

    The threat of the “crushing” of the President of the Commission between President of the Council and HR is underlined by Mangiameli (2008a), p. 247, who nonetheless does not unfavourably see the downsizing of the Commission to more technical and neutral tasks, p. 235.

  167. 167.

    This line of tendency of the Community experience until now is highlighted by Amato (2006), p. 124.

  168. 168.

    Coombes (1970).

Table of Cases

ECJ

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CFI

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  1. Faculty for Economics, Law and Social Science, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

    Hermann-Josef Blanke

  2. National Research Council Institute for Regionalism, Federalism and Self-Government, Rome, Italy

    Stelio Mangiameli

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    Hermann-Josef Blanke

  2. National Research Council - Institute fo Regionalism, Federalism and Self-Governm, Rome, Italy

    Stelio Mangiameli

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Blanke, HJ., Mangiameli, S. (2013). Article 17 [The European Commission]. In: Blanke, HJ., Mangiameli, S. (eds) The Treaty on European Union (TEU). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31706-4_18

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