There are several different EU decision-making procedures depending on the areas of cooperation concerned.

In broad outline, the principle of the EU legislative procedure boils down to the fact that legislation comes into being as a result of the Commission drawing up proposals for rules, while laws are either jointly adopted by the Council and the European Parliament or by the Council acting alone.

The EU Treaty contains more than 22 different legislative procedures, the three main ones being the consultation procedure, the codecision procedure and the assent procedure. The differences between these procedures are primarily linked to the role the European Parliament plays in the legislative process.

The consultation procedure is the classic decision-making procedure and remains important, although it was introduced back in 1958 with the adoption of the Treaty of Rome. Pursuant to the consultation procedure, the European Parliament is consulted and has the opportunity to express an opinion on the Commission’s proposals before the Council takes a decision hereon.

The assent procedure was introduced by the Single European Act in 1987 and its scope was extended by the Maastricht Treaty to include a number of cases which it was wished to exclude from the codecision procedure, but where there was nevertheless a wish to allocate an important role to the European Parliament.

The principle of the assent procedure is that the Council and Parliament must agree on the text to be adopted. The Council cannot adopt a legal act without having received an assenting opinion from the European Parliament on the legal act in question. Parliament cannot amend proposals but if it issues a negative opinion, the Council cannot adopt the legal act. The procedure is used, for example, in connection with the accession of new Member States to the EU.

The codecision procedure is one of the most important procedures, making EU legislation a joint matter for the European Parliament and the Council. The codecision procedure was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.

Other procedures
In addition to these four procedures, the Treaty contains a large number of provisions concerning other procedures. These may be extremely specialised procedures, e.g. the procedure for adoption of the budget. However, they may also be very simple procedures, where the Council is formally alone in making decisions. This applies to decisions on whether a Member State’s state aids should be accepted despite the fact that there is basically a ban on state aids in the EU.