Understanding the European Commission's right to withdraw legislative proposals

Although the European Commission exercises its right to withdraw a legislative proposal sparingly, doing so may become a contentious issue, particularly where a legislative proposal is withdrawn for reasons other than a lack of agreement between institutions or when a proposal clearly becomes obsolete – such as a perceived distortion of the purpose of the original proposal. Closely connected with the right of legislative initiative attributed to the Commission under the current Treaty rules, the European Court of Justice issued a judgment on the matter in case C 409/13. The Court spelled out the Commission's power to withdraw a proposal relative to the power of the two co-legislators, and also indicated the limits of this power. In this sense, the Court considers the Commission's power to withdraw proposals to be a corollary of its power of legislative initiative, which must be exercised in a reasoned manner and in a way that is amenable to judicial review. However, the Court's judgment does not solve all the issues connected to this matter. Whilst the judgment develops the Court's arguments along the lines of the current institutional setting, academia has expressed some concern as to whether the judgment is truly in line with the recently emerged push for a higher democratic character in institutional dynamics. The forthcoming Conference on the Future of Europe may provide the opportunity to rethink some of the issues surrounding the exercise of legislative initiative; which remains a matter of a constitutional and founding nature.