April ComDocs

For anyone trying to keep track of what has been published in the EurLex ComDoc list, the following have been slipped into the list for April at the same time as the May ones have started to appear:

Proposal for a Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training

COM(2008) 179 final
09 April 2008


Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1683/95 laying down a uniform format for visas as regards the numbering of visas

COM(2008) 188 final
14 April 2008

Keeping EP informed about Commission Committees

There is an interesting item in the OJC today (2008/C 143/01) regarding the Commission keeping Parliament aware of the activities of committees established in accordance with
Decision 1999/468/EC.

It says:

"The Commission will establish a register containing all documents forwarded to the European
Parliament . The European Parliament will have direct access to this register. In accordance with Article 7(5) of Decision 1999/468/EC, references of all documents transmitted to the European Parliament will be made public."

ComDocs are back

The first few documents for May have appeared on EurLex today.

Missing COMdocs - the official explanation

Patrick Overy, University of Exeter EDC, says that he's just received this explanation from the EUR-Lex helpdesk:

"This is a problem in the loading chain from the Secretariat General toEUR-Lex. The technical team tells us (since 2 weeks) that it will be solved very soon ... For the moment you can see only the titles of these recent COM documents on the Parliament website, at the bottom of this page, or on Prelex you can search by date.

Sorry for these inconveniences !"

Inconveniences?? We can't access some of the Commission's most important documents for more than a month and they describe it as an inconvenience!! What IS the world coming to?

Welsh to become official EU language?

Welsh might be used at EU level, according to this BBC news item.

National legislation

The latest EUR-Lex newsletter reports improvements to 'Sector 7', which gives details of national implementing measures.

Still no COMdocs

Here we are a week later and there's no new COMs been added to the EUR-Lex page, with the latest addition still 30 April - that's four weeks ago!!

What's going on? Maybe it's true that the Commission has gone into hibernation until the future of the Lisbon Treaty is known - a suggestion made in the International Herald Tribune, which I stumbled on via the EU Referendum blog.

Death of the Directive - continued

According to a press release in Rapid yesterday the Commission is proposing to replace the Construction Product Directive (89/106/EEC) with a new Regulation which adds to the ones I mentioned in an article in Focus a couple of months ago.

I still think this is how the Commission will solve the implementation problem!

It is also interesting that the press release links to the Enterprise and Industry DG, which offers a link to the proposal, COM(2008) 311 final.

However, if you go to EurLex, which is still showing no ComDocs added in May, and put 2008 311 into the ComDocs search box, it says "Not available in English"

Why doesn't EurLex mention on its front page that it hasn't added a preparatory act since 30 April?

Commission and Parliament seal deal in London

From 2010 the European Commission and European Parliament will be sharing offices in London, according to this press release. Facilities will include a conference centre, exhibition space and an information centre.

COMdoc scandal

How is it possible that, on 22 May, the latest addition to the list of COMdocs on EUR-lex is dated 30 April?
Where are the texts of the COMdocs announced in Commission press releases over the past three weeks?
Why has the situation become so appallingly bad recently? This is scandalous!