Transparency - implementation of the Birmingham declaration

Simplification of and easier access to Community legislation

1. Making new Community legislation clearer and simpler

   While the technical nature of most texts and the need to compromise among the various national positions often complicate the drafting process, practical steps should nevertheless be taken to improve the quality of Community legislation, such as the following:

   1. guidelines for the drafting of Community legislation should be agreed upon, containing criteria against which the quality of drafting of legislation would have to be checked;

   2. delegations of Member States should endeavour, at all levels of the Council proceedings, to check more thoroughly the quality of legislation;

   3. the Council Legal service should be required to review draft legislative acts on a regular basis before they are adopted by the Council and make suggestions where necessary for appropriate redrafting in order to make such acts as simple and clear as possible;

   4. the jurist-linguist group, which does the final editing of all legislation before it is adopted by the Council (with the participation of national legal experts), should give suggestions for simplifying and clarifying the language of the texts without changing their substance.

2. Making existing Community legislation more accessible

   Community legislation can be made more readily accessible in a concise and intelligibel form through a speedier and more organised use of consolidation or codification; an improvement of the CELEX-database system should also be considered.

   1. Improving and organising consolidation or codification of Community legislation

      The two possible approaches - unofficial consolidation and official codification [1] - must be pursued in parallel.

      1. The Office for Official Publications of the European Communities has an important role to play in respect of unofficial consolidation. Planning of this began some time ago and a new system will be operated as from 1993 on, whereby the consolidated version of all Community legislation undergoing amendments can be made automatically available following any such amendment; two years later, the system should be able to cover the whole of Community legislation (including past legislation) provided that there is adequate funding. Consolidated legislation should be immediately published (in the C-series of the Official Journal), possibly after adding the "considérants", and/or made available through CELEX.

      2. Official codification is important because it provides legal security as to the law which is applicable at a certain moment concerning a specific issue.

         Since official codification can only be done through the relevant legislative procedures, priorities need to be established and an accelerated working method agreed upon between the three institutions which have legislative powers.

         1. Official codification should take place on the basis of agreed priorities. The Commission will propose such priorities in its work programme after appropriate consultation;

         2. A jointly acceptable accelerated working method should be sought allowing codified Community law, (replacing existing legislation without changing its substance) to be adopted in a speedy and efficient way; a consultative group composed of the legal services of the Commission, the Council and the Parliament would help to carry out the necessary ground work to permit the adoption of codified Community legislation as rapidly as possible under the Community's normal decision-making procedure.

   2. Strengthening the CELEX data system [2]

      CELEX should be improved with a view to

      1. catching up with the delay as to
         • existing legislation,
         • feeding the database in the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese languages;

      2. making the system a more user friendly and accessible to the public.

      The necessary financial means should be made available.