Publications

Fernández Pasarín, A.M (2015) "The State back in: "La comitologie ou la délégation contrôlée et coordonnée du pouvoir". Revue Française d'Administration publique, 158: 463-475..

 

The State back in: Comitology as supervised and Coordinated Delegation of Power – This article aims to shed light on the role of comitology as a key, but denatured, element of national coordination of European affairs at the executive level of the EU decision-making process. It shows the central position occupied by this system within the EU institutional tangle as a stronghold of member states’ sovereignty, but also its loss of significance in practice, due to a logic of functioning that is decentralized and inspired by supranationalism, and which tends to push this administrative chainlink away from the epicentre of national politics except in cases of major disagreement with the European Commission.

 

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Dehousse, R., A.M. Fernández Pasarín, and J.P. Plaza Font (2014) “How consensual is comitology?” Journal of European Public Policy 21(6): 842-859.

ABSTRACT
This contribution revisits the question of the alleged consensual and deliberative nature of comitology proceedings on new conceptual and empirical bases. On the conceptual plane, we argue that it is important to separate the analysis of decision-making from that of outcomes: the fact that committees generally end up ratifying Commission proposals does not mean the latter are never contested. Consensus and deliberation being closely related concepts, we propose to focus on dissent within committees, which we regard as an indicator of a non-deliberative process or an imperfect deliberation. Applying this approach to data from the comitology register, we show the existence of a sizeable rate of contestation in various fields, and offer a first analysis of the factors that may influence dissensus.

 

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Fernández Pasarín, A.M (2015) "¿Cuánto consenso hay en los comités ejecutivos europeos?". UAB Divulga, 06th July. .

 

La comitología es el sistema que articula las relaciones entre el Consejo, la Comisión y el Parlamento europeo en materia ejecutiva y consiste en la creación de comités compuestos por un representante de cada Estado miembro, encargados de emitir dictámenes sobre las medidas reglamentarias propuestas por la Comisión. Un estudio ha analizado la toma de decisiones y las votaciones producidas en los más de 200 comités ejecutivos operativos para el año 2008. Los resultados indican una conflictividad mayor de la esperada y variaciones en función de los ámbitos. (IN SPANISH ONLY).

 

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