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Alfé, Manuela; Christiansen, Thomas; Piedrafita, Sonia --- "Implementing Committees in the Enlarged European Union: Business as Usual for Comitology?" [2008] ELECD 278; in Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo (eds), "The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union

Editor(s): Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203458

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Implementing Committees in the Enlarged European Union: Business as Usual for Comitology?

Author(s): Alfé, Manuela; Christiansen, Thomas; Piedrafita, Sonia

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

11. Implementing committees in the
enlarged European Union: business
as usual for comitology?
Manuela Alfé, Thomas Christiansen and Sonia
Piedrafita

INTRODUCTION

EU legislation is not complete without the implementation of the legislative
acts that have been adopted by the Council and the Parliament.
Implementation requires, in many cases, actions at the national level, for
example when it comes to the transposition of EU directives. However,
beyond this decentralized mode of implementation, over time the central-
ized implementation of Community acts has also become essential to the
functioning of the EU's administrative system. Centralized implementation
involves the delegation of powers to the European Commission to adopt
executive measures, and the supervision of the Commission's use of these
powers through committees of member state representatives. The term
`comitology' has been coined to describe this system of about 250 imple-
menting committees and their interaction with the European Commission.
Institutionally speaking, comitology has an oddly hybrid nature, com-
bining the intergovernmental dimension of bringing together national
representatives, comparable to Council working groups, with the suprana-
tional character of the Commission which is chairing the meetings and ulti-
mately adopting the executive measures submitted to the relevant
committee. This, together with the high volume of decisions taken in this
realm (2500­3000 executive measures are adopted annually),1 gives com-
itology a special place within the institutional structure of the EU.
The question addressed here is whether the `big bang enlargement' of
2004/2007 has had a significant impact on comitology, and ...