Co-decision procedure

Overview
In the co-decision procedure, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers share legislative power and must both approve a European Commission proposal for it to become EU law. The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 (which entered into force in 1999) simplified the “co-decision procedure” and extended it to many additional policy areas (ranging from the environment to social policy). As more decisions within the Council of Ministers have become subject to qualified majority voting (rather than unanimity) to allow for greater speed and efficiency of decision-making, the European Parliament’s power of “co-decision” has come to be viewed as playing an increasingly important checks-and-balances role at the European level to the Commission and Council of Ministers.

Impact of the Lisbon Treaty
On December 1, 2009, the Lisbon Treaty &mdash; the EU’s latest institutional reform effort &mdash; went into effect. The Lisbon Treaty roughly doubles the Parliament’s right of “co-decision” to 80 policy areas, including agriculture and justice and home affairs issues such as immigration and police cooperation. In doing so, the Lisbon Treaty gives the EP a say in most all legislation passed in the EU.

Tax matters and foreign policy, however, are among the areas in which EU member states retain decision-making authority and to which the “co-decision procedure” does not apply (the Parliament may give a non-binding opinion). The Lisbon Treaty technically renames the “co-decision procedure” as the “ordinary legislative procedure,” although “co-decision” remains the more commonly used term.