Eurochamber’s ‘legacy’, suspended legislative proposals that will pass into the hands of the new Parliament

Brussels – Members of the European Parliament have been cleaning out their seats in the hemicycle and the offices of the European Parliament, ready to make way – barring reappointment – for the new national delegations that will be rewarded in the electoral round that began today (June 6) in the Netherlands and ends on the evening of June 9 in Italy. But to the newcomers, they leave a sturdy legacy: 119 projects of suspended legislative proposals, on which the governing bodies of the incoming Parliament will have to decide whether and how to continue the work.

Before the interruption of work on April 25, the outgoing European Parliament put its stamp on 56 of the 119 suspended dossiers. That means they have either been adopted in the first reading or have received a mandate from the plenary to start negotiations with member states. For example, the directive on food and textile waste, the regulation on new genomic techniques, the Single European Sky reform and the revision of the EU Customs Code, the directives on water pollutants and soil monitoring, and the package on the revision of payment services. For all these, the European Parliament has ‘secured’ its position: that is where the House, even if made up of different majorities and sensitivities, will have to start from in inter-institutional negotiations.

However, in the transition from the ninth to the tenth European legislature, there are 11 dossiers on which the relevant parliamentary committee has voted but are awaiting confirmation in the plenary. Another four dossiers are stuck at the draft report stage at the committee level, while 48 are still in the preparatory stage. These include a new crackdown on corruption, the regulation on the digital euro, directives on the civil liability of artificial intelligence, and the one to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation, the so-called “anti-trafficking” package (the rules to prevent the facilitation of irregular immigration into the EU).

Based on input from the parliamentary committees, once the new Parliament is in place, the Conference of Presidents (the body that brings together the President of the European Parliament and the group leaders) will decide whether to continue working on outstanding files. The European Parliament services point to the October 2024 plenary session as the likely date for the formal announcement of the files to be continued. In principle, the Conference of Presidents decides to resume all unfinished legislative work, except for files that have become obsolete and for which a new proposal by the Commission or a new consultation by the Council is expected.