Rules of Procedure of the European Commission

Structure

• Collegiality – the Commission must act as a college, with a President and other Commissioners, including the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, each having defined roles.
• Priorities, work programme and budget – the Commission must set priorities in line with the political guidelines laid down by the President, reflected in its work programme and the draft general budget of the European Union, which it adopts each year.

Decision-making procedures

• Oral procedure. The Commission takes decisions – mostly of major political or economic importance – during its ordinary or extraordinary meetings.
• Written procedure. Decisions are adopted in writing within a predetermined time limit.
• Empowerment procedure. The Commission empowers one or more Commissioners to adopt management or administrative measures on its behalf.
• Delegation procedure. The Commission delegates the power to adopt certain management or administrative measures on its behalf to Directors-General or Heads of service.

Services and inter-service cooperation

• The organisational structure is composed of a number of Directorates-General (DGs) and other Commission services. These form a single administrative service and share collective responsibility for the coherence of all policies.
• The staff complies with the highest professional and ethical rules and acts in accordance with the Staff Regulations and the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour.
• Role of the Secretary General – assists the President, including by ensuring that the Commission’s priorities align with the political guidelines.
• Role of the Directors-General, Heads of Service and of the Legal Service.
• In light of the principle of collegiality, consultations between DGs and the Secretariat-General, Legal Service and other services are conducted during the preparation of a draft act.

Transparency, data protection and security

• Public availability of legislative proposals and related documents.
• Transparency of relations with interest representatives in accordance with the rules and principles of the public transparency register.
• Detailed rules for applying Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to documents (annex).
• General obligation to respect the confidentiality of discussions, information and documents.

The following annexes to the Rules of Procedure remain temporarily in force:

• the annex setting up the ARGUS general rapid alert system; and
• the annex on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters to community institutions and bodies.