Cuardaigh

Passerelle clauses are a mechanism for introducing Treaty change of a very specific nature. They modify the decision-making rules that affect acts of the Council, by allowing a shift from unanimity to qualified majority voting or from a special legislative procedure to the ordinary legislative procedure. This study explores the differences between passerelle clauses and other flexibility measures (enhanced cooperation, the flexibility clause, and accelerator or brake clauses) and explores the main ...

The EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should start on 1 January 2021, but the negotiations have encountered delays in the European Council and Council. During the May plenary part-session, the European Parliament is expected to vote a report by its Committee on Budgets, asking the Commission to prepare urgently a legislative proposal for a contingency plan should the post-2020 MFF not be agreed on time. The objective would be to provide a safety net to protect beneficiaries of EU funds ...

The Member States of the European Union have agreed, as a result of their membership of the EU, to transfer some of their powers to the EU institutions in specified policy areas. Thus, EU institutions make supranational binding decisions in their legislative and executive procedures, budgetary procedures, appointment procedures and quasi-constitutional procedures.

Elections to the European Parliament are not conducted according to a uniform, EU-wide electoral procedure. Rather, EU law sets only some basic principles, with national electoral laws applying for the rest. Parliament has repeatedly sought to bring about further harmonisation of the rules governing European parliamentary elections, but the diverging constitutional and electoral traditions of the Member States, as well as the importance of electoral rules for the design of political systems, have ...

The Brussels IIa Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility), which since 1 March 2005 has applied to all Member States except Denmark, is about to be reviewed. The European Parliament will be consulted in this process. This notes aims to clarify the scope of the regulation which relates to other international instruments. It applies ...