Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Acts of the institutions ° Procedure for drawing up acts ° Due consultation of the Parliament ° Essential procedural requirement ° Scope ° Failure of Parliament to meet the obligation of genuine cooperation between institutions ° Effects

Summary

Due consultation of the Parliament in the cases provided for by the Treaty constitutes an essential procedural requirement, disregard of which renders the measure concerned void. The effective participation of the Parliament in the legislative process of the Community, in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Treaty, represents an essential factor in the institutional balance intended by the Treaty. Such power reflects the fundamental democratic principle that the people should take part in the exercise of power through the intermediary of a representative assembly.

Observance of the consultation requirement implies that the Parliament has expressed its opinion; the requirement cannot be satisfied by the Council' s simply asking for it. In an emergency, it is for the Council to use all the possibilities available under the Treaty and the Parliament' s Rules of Procedure in order to obtain the prior opinion of the Parliament.

However, the dialogue between institutions, on which the consultation procedure in particular is based, is subject to the same mutual duties of genuine cooperation as those which govern relations between Member States and the Community institutions.

The Parliament fails in its duty of genuine cooperation with the Council if, following a request from the Council which was justified having regard to the special relations between the Community and the developing countries and to the difficulties which would result from an abrupt interruption in the application of the system of generalized tariff preferences established in favour of certain products originating in those countries, it decides to deal with a draft regulation applying those preferences for the forthcoming year under its procedure for urgent cases, but then decides to adjourn the last plenary session during which the draft could have been debated in time without debating it. In those circumstances, the Parliament is not entitled to complain of the Council' s failure to await its opinion before adopting the contested regulation.