The override system

 

if you go to www.openeurope.org.uk on page 16 it states that it was used 77 times in 2005 (of which 22 were during the UK's presidency of the EU when our government set the EU agenda and then stopped our parliament from scrutinising it). 51 of these overrides took place when parliament was in dissolution in preparation for the general election and could conduct no business, and 17 took place during the summer recess when Parliament was closed.
 
For further details you would need to phone the authors on 0207 197 2333.  Foreword by Micheal Gove MEP.
Writers : Lorraine Mullally, Barry Watts. Editor Neil O'Brien. 

 

Media Release – 6 February 2007

Over a third of new EU law short-circuits the legislative process

Last year, more than half all new EU legislation did not complete the legislative process before passing into law. 

Since 1999, when the  Amsterdam Treaty first permitted such a short-circuiting procedure, more than a third of all new EU legislation has not completed the proper parliamentary process in Brussels before becoming law.  In every case, the Westminster parliament has then been obliged to rubber stamp it into UK law.

These figures were admitted by European Commission President Barroso in reply to a written question from Ashley Mote MEP, Independent, SE England .

"Significantly, this question was answered over the Christmas period and has only just arrived on my desk", Mr Mote commented.  "It beggars belief that the EU has the nerve to use the word 'law' to describe legislation that has effectively bypassed proper scrutiny by the European Parliament.  Such contempt for the democratic process simply reminds us that the EU is actually a bureaucratic dictatorship.  The European Parliament is little more than an elaborate and expensive charade, there to give an illusion of parliamentary democracy.  In fact it is nothing of the sort", he said.

The full text of question and answer follows:   

WRITTEN QUESTION E-5110/06

by Ashley Mote (NI) to the Commission

 Subject:            Premature adoption of proposed EU law

What percentage of proposed EU law was activated after its first reading in the European Parliament during the year to date?

What percentage applied in each of the years since this procedure was adopted?

 E-5110/06EN

Answer given by Mr Barroso on behalf of the Commission (21.12.2006)

 The Honourable Member is interested in statistics on legislative proposals adopted under the co-decision procedure (Article 251 ECT) after only one reading in Parliament, i.e. at an early stage in the procedure.

It was after the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty (1 May 1999) that the co‑legislators were given the possibility of adopting a legislative act at its first reading. There are two possible scenarios under the Treaty: either the Council approves all Parliament's amendments or no amendment is put forward by Parliament to the Commission's original proposal and the act can also be adopted in this way.

 According to the Commission's data, a total of 522 legislative acts were concluded under the co‑decision procedure between 1 May 1999 and 12 December 2006.

 In answer to the Honourable Member's question, the proportion of acts adopted (195) after a single reading in Parliament expressed as a percentage for the period is 36.8%.

 By way of comparison, the proportion of acts adopted at first reading in 2006 (figures available as at 12 December 2006) is about 57.1%.

 For more detail and in particular for the annual breakdown of legislative acts adopted under the co‑decision procedure, the Honourable Member should contact his own institution which, as co‑legislator, is sure to keep statistics of this kind.

For further information contact Ashley Mote on 07836 220223

 

http://www.telegrap h.co.uk/news/ main.jhtml? xml=/news/ 2007/02/11/ nbook11.xml
Telegraph
Christopher Booker's notebook
By Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:07am GMT 11/02/2007

A 'democratic' watchdog that likes to keep itself secret

An internal inquiry has been launched by a Commons committee into how its
confidential documents came to be leaked to a member of the Lords. It is another
vivid illlustration of the extraordinary secrecy and lack of democracy pervading
the way that laws that cost our economy billions of pounds a year are imposed on
Britain by the European Union.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a former Tory peer who recently joined the UK
Independence Party, has been challenging the Government about documents supplied
to MPs on the Commons European Scrutiny Committee. This body is meant to examine
every law proposed by the EU before it can be approved by British ministers and
civil servants in Brussels.

Under the terms of a Resolution passed by the Commons as long ago as 1990, no
minister is permitted to agree to an EU law until it has first been
"scrutinised" by MPs, a task delegated by the House to this all-party committee.

It is well known that the Council of Ministers, which gives the final approval
to EU legislation on behalf of the 27 member states, meets in secret (giving
rise to the charge that the only countries in the world that are as secretive as
the EU about the way their laws are made are Cuba and North Korea). But,
astonishingly, the Commons Scrutiny Committee, which examines those laws on
behalf of Parliament, itself meets in secret, so that the vast majority of MPs
(let alone us members of the public) are not allowed to know what legal
proposals it is considering or what it has advised.

Now, after it emerged that Lord Pearson had seen documents supplied to the
committee (which often come complete with trenchant comments by its staff and
weaselly letters from ministers), it is holding an urgent inquiry into how these
"secret papers" came into his hands.

The significance of this row is that, whenever ministers are asked why the EU's
lawmaking process has to be so undemocratic and unaccountable, their stock
response is that nothing goes through without first being "scrutinised" . But,
since no one outside the Scrutiny Committee is meant to know what it is up to,
when its papers fall into the hands of another member of Parliament, albeit from
the Lords, this provokes uproar and a full inquiry into how such a dreadful
thing has happened.

The farce does not end there. It has long been scandalous how often British
ministers and civil servants do approve laws in Brussels, either before the
Scrutiny Committee has had time to study them at all, or in defiance of its
considered views. Lord Pearson recently asked how many times ministers have
overridden the wishes of the committee in this way. The shocking answer given by
Lord Triesman for the Foreign Office on January 30 was that, in the latest
period for which figures are available, between 2003 and 2006, it happened on no
fewer than 180 occasions.

We may no longer be surprised that our ministers and officials treat Parliament
with such contempt. But can they please never again pretend either that this
system whereby our laws are made is democratic, or that, to use another of their
favourite words, it is in the slightest sense "transparent" .