Taming the ‘Trojan Horse’ of Comitology? Accountability issues of Comitology and the Role of the European Parliament

Christine Neuhold

European Integration online Papers (EIoP), 2008, vol. 12

Abstract: The European Commission plays a major role as regulator in the process of implementation of European legislation. Just looking at the figures of implementing measures one will find that the Commission adopts more than 2.500 such legal acts per year. As is well known the Commission is not alone in this process of regulating the implementation process but is assisted and controlled by ‘comitology’ committees composed of civil servants from the administrations of the Member States.The system has been under pressure for reform almost from its inception, where especially the European Parliament (EP) has been highly critical of the complex system. It is noteworthy that the system has partly been reformed in 2006. From the side of the EP this most recent reform of comitology is characterised as a great breakthrough in parliamentary control over EU legislation and seen as improving accountability of the whole Community system.This paper wants to come in here and probe into the question whether the latest Decision on Comitology actually does alleviate the current accountability deficits of comitology.

Keywords: accountability; comitology; legitimacy; European Parliament; European Commission; political science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-04-03
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