Community method

The Community method is one of the most important decision-making processes in the European Union . In contrast to the intergovernmental method and the open method of coordination , in which the governments of the EU member states play a central role, the supranational institutions of the EU are more in the foreground in the Community method . The name of the Community method goes back to the European Communities (EC), which formed the first of the three pillars of the European Union until the Treaty of Lisbon . While the intergovernmental method was used in the other two pillars, the Community method was used in the EC area. When the Community method is introduced for certain policy areas that were previously subject to the intergovernmental method, this is known as communitarisation .

functionality

The community method is based on the following principles:

• The European Commission has the sole right of initiative in the legislative process of the European Union .
• The Council of the European Union usually votes with a qualified majority .
• The European Parliament is involved in the legislation.
• The member states implement the decisions made at European level; The Council can, however, also delegate implementing powers to the EU institutions, in particular the Commission, and to specially formed comitology committees of national officials.
• The European Court of Justice has in the context of "the task of ensuring the observance of the law" (1 s Article 19 clause 2 of the EU Treaty...) The judicial powers ; the Commission may a. initiate infringement proceedings against member states in the event of a breach of an obligation under the treaties (e.g. failure to implement or insufficient implementation of secondary law) (see Art. 258 TFEU).

In particular, various legislative procedures can be applied within the Community method, each of which is specified in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). As a rule, this is the ordinary legislative procedure , in which the Council votes by a qualified majority and the European Parliament can make amendments to the legislation and, if necessary, reject a legislative proposal entirely. In some areas, however, so-called special procedures also apply, such as the consent procedure , in which the European Parliament only has to give its consent (i.e. cannot make formal amendments), or the consultation procedure , in which the Council can adopt a decision, even against Parliament's will . For some policy areas, such as certain questions of social and tax policy, the unanimity principle also applies in the Council. Finally, there are also a few policy areas in which not only the European Commission but also individual member states have a right of initiative. In addition, the Commission can always be asked by the Council or the European Parliament to make a specific legislative proposal, and in practice it regularly complies with such requests.

Differentiation from other methods and historical development

The Community method was the original method of operation of the European Communities founded in the 1950s, i.e. the ECSC , the EEC and the Euratom . However, the European Parliament initially had significantly fewer opportunities to participate, and majority decisions in the Council of the European Union were only introduced gradually.

With the establishment of the European Union in the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 , the so-called second and third "pillars" of the new policy areas of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and cooperation in the area of ​​justice and home affairs (ZJI) were established at European level EU introduced the intergovernmental method . Decisions are made unanimously by the governments in the Council of the EU, the Commission and the European Parliament are not involved and are only informed about them. Not even the Court of Justice of the European Union has jurisdiction over individual policy areas.

In the treaty reforms of Amsterdam and Nice , sub-areas of the ZJI were gradually transferred to the scope of the EC Treaty , so that the Community method has applied to these areas since then. Most recently, with the Treaty of Lisbon , which came into force in 2009, police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (PJZS) was communitized as the last part of the ZJI. The third pillar of the European Union had thus dissolved. At the same time, the conceptual distinction between European Community and European Union was abolished by renaming the EC to EU. However, the term Community method was retained.

Since the Treaty of Lisbon, the Community method has been applied to all policy areas in which the EU has its own legislative competence. Only the common foreign and security policy still follows the intergovernmental method. For policy areas for which there is no explicit legal basis in the EU Treaty , the open method of coordination has also been established since the 1990s , in which no formal decisions are made, but rather the member states in the Council only informally coordinate with each other.

Debate on a "new method of union"

In a speech at the College of Europe in Bruges in November 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the contradiction between the intergovernmental and community methods to be overcome by a new approach, which she described as the "new Union method". She described this as “coordinated action based on solidarity - everyone in his own responsibility, all for the same goal”, but she did not give a precise definition. In the media reactions to this, Merkel was mostly understood to mean that, in her opinion , the European Council should play a more important role vis-à-vis the Commission and the European Parliament. In the days that followed, the term introduced by Merkel was picked up by some other politicians, such as Herman Van Rompuy , the then President of the European Council , who supported the approach. Jacques Delors , former President of the European Commission , rejected Merkel's proposal and advocated the supranational integration approach of the Community method. The CDU party convention in Leipzig in 2011 also spoke out in favor of the community method .

Web links

• Explanations of the "Community method" on the homepage of the European Union

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Speech by Chancellor Merkel on the occasion of the opening of the 61st academic year of the College of Europe Bruges ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the German Federal Government.  
2. ↑ EurActiv , November 3, 2010: Merkel criticizes the EU Parliament and the Commission
3. ↑ A curtain went up (PDF; 142 kB), Van Rompuys speech on November 9, 2010, on the homepage of the European Council.
4. ↑ Event “Where is Europe” with Jacques Delors  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the Europa-Union Landau, with a link to the speech.  
5. ↑ Strong Europe - Good Future for Germany - Decision of the 24th party congress of the CDU in Germany. (PDF; 84 kB) Christian Democratic Union of Germany , accessed on November 23, 2011 .