Participants are given a comprehensive overview of European decision-making, following the legislative policy cycle, from initiation through decision-making, to implementation. The first stage examines how the Commission elaborates a proposal, with particular attention on impact assessment. This is followed by a review of internal procedures in the Council and Parliament, as well as interinstitutional negotiations.
Participants will learn to manage negotiations in a complex environment and will see the impact of bargaining and compromise-building on the policy process. To round off, the seminar will look at the policy implementation stage at the EU level. It will examine how the Commission may be empowered by the EU legislator to adopt measures at EU level, whether of a ‘quasi-legislative’ nature (delegated acts) or of a more technical nature where uniformity is required (implementing acts). The final session looks back at the entire policy cycle, providing a comprehensive overview with regard to information and documentation management at the EU level, and from among myriad sources of information and registers of primary documents on EU policy- and decision-making.