The eighth plenary session of the Convention for the future of Europe, the first after the summer break, is being held in Brussels on 12 and 13 September. The delegates, chaired by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, will discuss the issue of the simplification of EU instruments and procedures, on the basis of two working documents drawn up by the Convention’s secretariat. The 103 members of the Convention are called to pronounce on four fundamental questions: how to reduce the number of instruments at the disposal of the Union to exercise its own functions and how to define more clearly their juridical effects? Is it necessary to establish a clear classification of the juridical instruments in terms of their force (hierarchy of norms)? How can the rationalization of existing legislative procedures be optimized? How reduce their number? Is it possible to simplify some procedures such as co-decision and budgetary procedure? During the session, it is expected that Mendez de Vigo, head of the delegation of the European Parliament and chairman of the “subsidiarity” work group of the Convention, will present a report on the progress of the debate on the theme of subsidiarity (which will be debated in a later session).
