Meetings of the Commission
1. Meetings of the Commission shall be convened by the President.
2. The Commission shall meet, as a general rule, once a week (‘ordinary’ meetings). It shall also meet whenever the President deems it necessary (‘extraordinary’ meetings).
3. In exceptional circumstances, if some or all of the Members of the Commission are prevented from attending a meeting of the Commission in person, the President may invite them to participate by means of telecommunication systems allowing for their identification and effective participation.
4. Acts may be adopted by oral procedure at ordinary meetings or extraordinary meetings. The rules for organising and running the meetings, as well as the procedural rules, are set out in Articles 8 to 16.
5. At the initiative of the President, the Commission may also hold orientation debates, seminars, informal meetings or working meetings on specific topics.
Setting the agenda
1. The President shall set the agenda of each ordinary and extraordinary meeting of the Commission.
2. In order to facilitate the planning of the Commission’s work and to take account of the Commission’s communication strategy, the Secretary-General, under the authority of the President, shall establish the list of items that are planned for inclusion on the agenda of meetings of the Commission.
3. In addition to the recurring items which are automatically placed on the agenda of each meeting of the Commission, such as the approval of minutes, interinstitutional relations, coordination of external action or administrative and budgetary matters, the politically sensitive and/or important matters and draft acts, in particular those linked to the Commission’s priorities, shall generally be included on the agenda.
4. In order to guarantee the effective exercise of collegiality, any items included on the agenda of a meeting of the Commission shall be carried over to a later meeting if:
(a)
the relevant documents are not made available to the Members of the Commission within the time limits set out in Article 11(3), unless the President decides otherwise;
(b)
one (or more) of the language versions required by Article 41(1), point (b) is (are) missing, unless the President decides to ask the Commission for approval ‘in principle’, accompanied by an ad hoc empowerment for the purpose of adopting the draft act once the language version(s) is (are) available.
5. The Commission may, on a proposal from the President, discuss a matter that does not appear on the agenda.
Conditions for the inclusion of items on the agenda
1. Without prejudice to paragraph 4, the following information shall be available when any request is made to include on the agenda a draft act referred to in Article 8(3):
(a)
the title of the draft act and a brief description of its objective;
(b)
the reasons for presenting it and for its timing;
(c)
its link with the political guidelines laid down by the President and the priorities set by the Commission and with the Commission’s work programme and its communication strategy;
(d)
the state of preparation of the file, including as regards better regulation requirements and the interservice consultation;
(e)
the explicit agreement of the Member of the Commission responsible for the budget if the proposal has significant budgetary implications.
2. The conditions set out in paragraph 1 also apply to requests for inclusion on the agenda of draft acts of general application presented under miscellaneous administrative and budgetary matters.
3. Articles 29, 36 and 41 shall apply to requests for inclusion on the agenda of draft acts submitted under empowerment and delegation procedures.
4. Unless the President decides otherwise, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 shall not apply to:
(a)
discussion papers requested by the President to structure orientation debates;
(b)
information notes from Members of the Commission who inform succinctly the Commission of matters under their responsibility, without asking it to adopt a position, and which commit only their authors and the inclusion of which on the agenda has been specifically authorised by the President.
5. Any request to include an item on the agenda of a meeting of the Commission shall be submitted by one (or more) Member(s) of the Commission to the President at least nine working days before the meeting of the Commission in question. In exceptional circumstances, the President may accept a late request for an item to be included in the agenda. The Secretary-General shall be informed of any request for inclusion in the agenda.
Preparation of agenda items
1. Items included on the agenda of an ordinary or an extraordinary meeting of the Commission shall be prepared at the weekly meeting of the Heads of Cabinet chaired by the Secretary-General.
2. Special meetings of cabinet members shall be organised, at the President’s initiative, for a preliminary discussion of specific matters or files. A member of the President’s cabinet shall chair these meetings. They shall usually be held in the week prior to that of the meeting of the Commission.
3. The Interinstitutional Relations Group ( 13 ) shall examine the positions to be adopted by the Commission in interinstitutional matters, in particular files pending before the European Parliament and/or the Council.
4. The Group for External Coordination ( 14 ) shall examine the positions to be adopted by the Commission in the field of external relations and shall ensure consistency between the external and internal aspects of the Commission's work.
5. In principle, any matter on which an agreement has been reached at one of the preparatory meetings referred to in paragraphs 1 to 4 may not be reopened at a later stage.
6. If an agreement is reached on an agenda item at a weekly meeting of the Heads of Cabinet and that item is kept on the agenda, the act in question may be adopted without debate during the meeting of the Commission.
7. If an agreement is reached at the weekly meeting of the Heads of Cabinet or at the Commission meeting, the act in question may be adopted, on a proposal from the President, by finalisation written procedure, pursuant to Article 22.
8. In all the preparatory meetings referred to in paragraphs 1 to 4, cabinet members shall speak on behalf of the Member of the Commission whom they represent on the basis of a clear mandate.
Making the agenda and other documents available
1. The Secretary-General shall make a draft agenda available to the Members of the Commission no later than the working day before the weekly meeting of the Heads of Cabinet.
2. At the latest on the day before ordinary or extraordinary meetings of the Commission, the Secretary-General shall make the agenda, as set by the President, available to the Members of the Commission. The agenda shall be made public in accordance with Article 63.
3. The documents required for the discussion of each of the agenda items shall be made available to the Members of the Commission no later than the working day prior to the weekly meeting of the Heads of Cabinet.
Unless a derogation is granted by the President on the basis of a duly reasoned written request, the documents intended for discussion at a special meeting of cabinet members shall be made available to the Members of the Commission at least 48 hours prior to the meeting. In the case of very long documents, the Secretary-General, in agreement with the President, may allow more time.
The documents shall be made available subject to the adoption procedure being initiated by the Secretary-General after verifying in particular the agreement of the Member of the Commission responsible and, where applicable, of the Members of the Commission who are jointly responsible or associated.
Quorum and attendance of Members at meetings of the Commission
1. The number of Members whose presence is necessary for the Commission to take valid decisions at its ordinary and extraordinary meetings shall be equal to the majority of its Members.
2. In exceptional circumstances, if some or all Members of the Commission are prevented from attending a meeting of the Commission in person, the President may invite them to participate by means of telecommunication systems allowing for their identification and effective participation. They shall then be deemed to be present for the purposes of the quorum.
3. In accordance with the principle of collegiality, the Members of the Commission shall attend all ordinary and extraordinary meetings of the Commission in their entirety.
4. The President may release a Member of the Commission from the obligation to attend an ordinary or extraordinary meeting of the Commission, if justified by compelling circumstances, such as obligations with regard to other European Union institutions or related to the external representation of the European Union. In order to obtain such authorisation, the Member of the Commission concerned shall address a duly substantiated written request to the President in good time.
5. Absent Members cannot be replaced.
Decision-making
1. The Commission’s decisions shall be adopted on a proposal from one or more of its Members. They shall be adopted by a majority of its Members.
2. When a decision is to be voted on, at the initiative of the President or at the request of one or more of the Members of the Commission, the following rules shall apply:
(a)
a vote on a draft act may concern, at the President’s discretion: (i) the original draft act, or (ii) an amended draft act submitted either by the Member(s) of the Commission responsible or by the President;
(b)
before proceeding to a vote, the President shall establish that the necessary quorum exists, as laid down in Article 12(1);
(c)
each Member of the Commission shall have one vote, which may not be delegated;
(d)
the draft act shall be adopted if the number of votes in favour is equal to or more than a majority of its Members;
(e)
the outcome of the vote, declared by the President, and all the information relating to it, shall be recorded in the minutes of the Commission meeting, in accordance with the procedures laid down in Article 16(3); the same shall apply to any statements (such as explanations of vote) which Members of the Commission ask to be recorded;
(f)
in certain exceptional circumstances the President may decide to hold a secret ballot.
Confidentiality of Commission meetings
1. Meetings of the Commission shall not be public.
2. Discussions in the meetings shall be protected by the principle of confidentiality.
Attendance at Commission meetings
1. The President shall decide which persons are allowed to attend the Commission’s discussions at its ordinary or extraordinary meetings.
2. Unless the President decides otherwise, the following persons may attend the Commission meetings: the Secretary-General, the President’s Head of Cabinet, the Director-General of the Legal Service, the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Communication, the Head of the Commission’s Spokesperson’s Service and the Director of the Secretariat-General’s Directorate responsible for Decision-making and Collegiality.
Any of those persons who is unable to attend may be replaced by a representative.
3. The President may decide to invite any other person on a particular agenda item.
4. The President may, on their own initiative or at the request of a Member of the Commission, restrict the presence of members of Commission staff and other persons for all or part of a meeting.
5. The Secretary-General shall assist the President in order to ensure compliance with the rules set out in paragraphs 1 to 4.
Minutes of Commission meetings
1. Minutes of all ordinary and extraordinary meetings of the Commission shall be drawn up by the Secretary-General.
2. The ordinary minutes (‘PVO’) shall give an account of the conduct of the meeting, the discussions and the adoption of acts, which is information that is to be made public.
3. The ordinary minutes may be accompanied by special minutes (‘PVS’), which shall record the discussions and acts not covered by paragraph 2, the votes taken and the statements which Members of the Commission ask to have recorded in the minutes. The special minutes shall be classified.
4. The draft minutes (PVO and PVS) shall be submitted to the Commission for approval at a subsequent meeting. The approved minutes shall be authenticated by the handwritten or electronic signatures of the President and the Secretary-General.
5. The ordinary minutes shall be made public once they have been approved by the Commission, in accordance with Article 63(2).
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
