The Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU notes that there is "support" from the Member States to make greater use of the second reading when negotiating legislative texts adopted under the co-decision procedure with the European Parliament.
"There is support for making more use of the second reading when it is in the EU Council's interests," it said in a paper on reforming the EU Council's working methods to be submitted to the meeting of National Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper II) on Wednesday 30 October.
During the last Parliament's term of office, almost all the legislative texts in codecision were adopted in a single reading which does not impose any particular time limits for negotiation, unlike the second reading stage.
In general, Member States recommend an increased role for Coreper in the preparation and coordination of work in the EU Council. The idea is even put forward for a "mechanism" to ensure that ongoing files are placed "at the right time" on the agenda of a meeting of national ambassadors.
All initial mandates for negotiations with Parliament on a particular legislative text should be agreed at ministerial level or, at least, at Coreper.
Name changes. In order to reflect the priorities on the European Council's strategic agenda, the "Environment" Council should be renamed the "Climate Change and Environment" Council, with some delegations wondering whether transport and energy issues should not be included in the competences of this new Council.
For the digital sector, "the spectrum of relevant issues involved is too wide to merge them into a single Council configuration", the Finnish document notes. But the "Telecommunications" Council could be renamed the "Digital" Council.
See the Finnish Presidency document: http://bit.ly/2NplYeD (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)