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EU items

EU items are draft legislation of the European Union (EU) adopted without the direct participation of the national parliaments. The European Commission submits these drafts to the Council of Ministers for it to take a decision on them. The Federal Government is obliged to inform the Bundestag and the Bundesrat of such items. An ordinary law formed the legal basis of this obligation from 1957 onwards until it was included in the Basic Law in conjunction with ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. The new Article 23 of the Basic Law now reads: "The Federal Government shall inform the Bundestag and the Bundesrat comprehensively and as quickly as possible." Moreover, before participating in the legislative process of the European Union, it must give the Bundestag an opportunity to state its opinion, which it has to take into account in its negotiations. Details are regulated in the "Act on Cooperation between the Federal Government and the German Bundestag in Matters concerning the European Union" and in the "Act on Cooperation between the Federation and the Länder in Matters concerning the European Union". Another addition to the Basic Law is Article 45, according to which the Bundestag has to appoint a "Committee on the Affairs of the European Union", which it may empower in individual cases to exercise the Bundestag's rights in relation to the Federal Government in European matters. The Committee therefore has a special position compared with the other permanent committees. It was set up for the first time at the beginning of the 13th electoral term. These changes were introduced because there was general dissatisfaction with the parliamentary treatment of EU items.

As far as procedure for the treatment of EU items is concerned, on 25 October 1995 the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union adopted principles pursuant to Rule 93 of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag.

According to these principles, the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union bears sole responsibility, or joint responsibility with other committees, for deliberations on all items and other initiatives within the framework of the European Union which might be of interest to the Federal Republic of Germany (e.g. memoranda, "grey papers" or "white papers" of the European Commission) and other EU items, draft EU directives and regulations, including the information regularly given by the Federal Government on the course of the proceedings; the same applies to the other EU documents, which are mostly preliminary drafts of EU items. It is very important for the Committee to be informed of these drafts and deliberate on them, since in most cases the national parliaments can only influence the drafting of these documents at an early stage.

To ensure that the Committee is informed in good time, the "Principles" place the Federal Government under an obligation to submit a written report within 5 sitting days of the documents being sent. These reports must comment on all important substantive and procedural issues raised in the documents. The special position of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union is also apparent from other provisions of the Rules of Procedure (Rules 93 and 93a):

• All EU items must be sent to the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union direct; the committee chairman submits to the President a proposal naming the committees to which the items etc. concerned should be referred as the committee responsible and the committees asked for an opinion;
• the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union may, also in matters in which it is only involved as a committee asked for an opinion, propose amendments - which will be debated in the plenary - to the recommendations of the committee responsible;
• Members of the European Parliament, who are appointed by the President upon the proposal of the parliamentary groups, are assigned to the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union in an advisory capacity.

The deliberations on EU items naturally vary considerably in intensity. Important regulations or directives are extensively discussed in the relevant committees, with the government representatives responsible and occasionally representatives of the European Commission being consulted, and in exceptional cases they are even debated in the plenary. The committees merely take note of the large majority of EU items. All in all, the treatment of EU matters in the Bundestag is of fundamental importance, since the participatory rights of the European Parliament are not yet sufficient to democratically legitimize EU legislation. The term "democratic deficit" is used in this connection.

Other government items which are subject to special procedure are budgetary bills (all items concerning the budget law and the budget) and finance bills (e.g. bills with considerable financial implications for the Federation).