European Union opinions

KEY POINTS

An opinion is one of the five types of legal act that EU institutions can adopt listed in Article 288 TFEU. The four other types of legal act mentioned in the article are regulations, directives, decisions and recommendations.

The first three are binding, whereas recommendations and opinions are non-binding.

The following are examples of instances where EU institutions issue opinions.

• The European Commission issues opinions in the situations described below.
  • Where a country submits an application to join the EU, under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, the Council of the European Union must request the Commission’s opinion on that country’s proposed accession. An example of such an opinion relates to Croatia’s application to become an EU Member State.
  • Where Member States seek the Commission’s views on the application of specific aspects of legal acts they adopt or seek guidance on their implementation. For example, in 2014, the Netherlands authorities notified the Commission of a draft decree amending the Medical Devices Decree, under Article 14b of Directive 93/42/EEC (the former medical devices directive, subsequently replaced by Regulation (EU) 2017/745). They were seeking to ban the use of permanent dermal fillers because they considered that the risks of severe disfigurement that could arise from their use were not outweighed by their solely aesthetic benefits. Following consultations with experts and other Member States, the Commission issued its opinion stating it supported the Netherlands authorities’ intention to ban the fillers in question.
• The Council issues opinions on Member States’ economic partnership programmes in the context of Regulation (EU) No 473/2013 on common rules for monitoring and assessing draft budgetary plans and ensuring the correction of euro area Member States’ excessive deficits (see summary). An example would be the Council’s 2013 opinion on the Economic Partnership Programme of the Netherlands.