O52 - Economywide Country Studies: EuropeReturn

The Lisbon Treaty has carried out an exact and systematic classification of decision procedures in the legislative area. It distinguishes two kinds of mutual interaction of the most important EU organs in adopting legislative acts of the Union: the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) and the special legislative procedure (SLP). While the OLP has only one firmly set form, the SLP has in total four concrete forms, depending on whether the Council decides by a qualified majority or unanimously, and whether the European Parliament (EP), is engaged in the decision-making merely on the basis of unbinding consultation or there is unconditionally required its consent for the adoption of the legislative proposal. There frequently occurs an opinion that the SLP is being applied in areas where member states have been unable to agree on the application of majority decision-making, i.e. on the abolition of the possibility of veto from the part of any of them. The article brings forth a certain discussion about a situation when the application of the SLP means the exclusion of all supranational elements from decision-making and when on the contrary, it can signify their certain strengthening in comparison with the OLP.