Interinstitutional agreements

 

SUMMARY OF:

Article 295 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

WHAT DO THE EU TREATIES SAY ABOUT INTERINSTITUTIONAL AGREEMENTS?

• The founding treaties of the European Union (EU) allow for interinstitutional agreements to be concluded between the EU’s institutions.
• Interinstitutional agreements regulate certain aspects of consultation and cooperation between the EU institutions and are the product of a consensus between them — i.e. they constitute a form of joint rules of procedure.

KEY POINTS

• Interinstitutional agreements seek to organise and facilitate cooperation between the EU institutions, specifically the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.
• This type of agreement is the result of institutional practice which was enshrined in the founding treaties of the EU with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. Article 295 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU recognises the existence of interinstitutional agreements and specifies that they may also be binding. In this case, the binding nature of the agreement depends on the wishes of the authors of the act.
• Moreover, interinstitutional agreements may, for example, take the form of codes of conduct, guidelines or declarations.

Examples of interinstitutional agreements include:

• Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament and the Council concerning classified information held by the Council;
• Interinstitutional agreement on budget discipline, cooperation and management;
• Interinstitutional agreement on Better Regulation.

Interinstitutional agreements that are not based on Article 295 also exist. For example, there is an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (ECB) on accountability and transparency in regard to European banking supervision.

The conclusion of this agreement was specifically written into Article 20(8) of Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013 on the ECB’s tasks relating to prudential supervision of credit institutions.

MAIN DOCUMENT

Article 295 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (OJ C 202, 7.6.2016, p. 175)

last update 16.08.2016