30.12.2006   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 324/36

1.1

The proposed decision (1) aims to repeal the Council Decision of 21 March 1962 (2) instituting a procedure for prior examination and consultation in respect of certain laws, regulations and administrative provisions concerning transport proposed in Member States.

1.2

The purpose of the proposed decision is to codify the Council Decision of 21 March 1962, and hence it fully preserves the content of the acts being codified and does no more than bring them together with only such formal amendments as are required by the codification exercise itself.

1.3

The current codification proposal follows from the Commission's decision of 1 April 1987 (3) in which it instructs its staff to undertake the codification of all legislative acts after no more than ten amendments in order to ensure that the Community rules are clear and readily understandable.

2.1

The Committee is particularly concerned about recent trends that alienate European citizens from the European idea and more importantly from the European legislative and decision making process. The Committee's mission is to help bridge the widening gap between Europe and organized civil society, that is to say its citizens.

2.2

Clearly, as long as several provisions that have been amended several times remain in fragmented form, so that they have to be sought partly in the original instrument and partly in the latter, amending one, the considerable research work will prevent ordinary citizens and numerous civil society organizations to find easily the legal information they need.

2.3

Therefore the Committee fully endorses the current proposal, in the particular hope that it will help all citizens and civil society interest groups to get better and more precise information concerning a given European legislative instrument.