The European Parliament adopted, by 607 votes to 11 with 4 abstentions, a decision on amendments to Parliament's Rules of Procedure concerning the referral of proposals for legally binding acts to committees and the procedure for solving conflicts of competence.
Parliament decided to make the following amendments to its Rules of Procedure:
Rule 48 - Consideration of legally binding acts
The President shall refer proposals for legally binding acts received from other institutions or Member States to the committee responsible for consideration. The other committees shall be informed of such referral at the same time.
Another amendment to Rule 48 stipulates that the President shall announce the referral in Parliament after receiving the proposal in all official languages of the European Union and, except in cases of requests for the application of the urgent procedure pursuant to Rule 163, after, where relevant, any conflict of competence between committees has been settled in accordance with Rule 211(2). Once it has been announced in Parliament, the referral shall be made public on Parliament’s website.
Rule 211: Questions of competence
If a standing committee declares itself not to be competent to consider an item, or if a conflict arises over the competence of two or more standing committees, the question of competence shall be submitted to the Conference of Committee Chairs within two weeks of the referral to committee provided for in Rule 48(1). Weeks without parliamentary activities and weeks set aside for external parliamentary activities shall not be taken into account for the purposes of that deadline.
At the latest at its second meeting after the expiry of the deadline laid down in paragraph 1, the Conference of Committee Chairs or its Chair shall issue a recommendation. The Conference of Presidents shall take a decision on the basis of that recommendation within six weeks after its transmission. If the Conference of Presidents fails to take a decision within that period, the recommendation shall be deemed to have been approved.