Two sides of the contemporary system of quasi-legislative acts of the Commission of the European Union

Abstract

The scientific article is devoted to the issue of complex legal analysis of both advantages and disadvantages of the contemporary system of Commission’s quasi-legislative acts which is composed of implementing and delegated acts. Commission’s implementing and delegated acts play a crucial role in the EU, but the abusive application by the EU legislator of the delegation of quasi-legislative powers to the Commission of the EU cause various negative consequences on the EU legal order. The author outlines the following positive sides of Commission’s quasi-legislative acts: acceleration of the EU decision-making process, adding the EU decision-making process flexibility, improvement of the quality of the EU legislative acts and unloading the overall EU legislature’s workload. Taking into account the latest statistics, the author has proved that the process of the adoption of implementing and delegated acts is in four times faster than ordinary and special legislative procedures. It is emphasized that COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 made the EU urgently enact a bunch of legislative acts that were mainly adopted in the form of Commission’s quasi-legislative acts. The author also points out that the quality of the EU’s legislation has been improved as well as EU’s legislator workload has been greatly reduced because of Commission’s implementing and delegated acts. At the same time, the author specifies that the absence of an explicit legal distinction between Commission’s implementing and delegated acts leads to numerous interinstitutional litigations and disputes and undermines the hierarchy of legal acts under the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. It is established that an excessive application by the Commission of the EU of the quasi-legislative instruments may breach the principle of institutional balance and may lead to the replacement of the sole EU legislator – the European Parliament and the Council. Eventually, the author argues that the lack of transparence and accountability of the Commission of the EU during the process of adoption of implementing and delegated acts deepen the ‘democratic deficit’ problem within the EU.