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The introduction of the co-decision procedure by the Treaty of Maastricht has been regarded as a major step forward for the EP and “the cause for parliamentary democracy” at the EU level (Shackleton 2000, p.325). Negotiation between the Council of Ministers and the EP committees has established by the new Treaty provision.

As soon as the Amsterdam Treaty took effect these contacts were intensified, mainly as a result of the possibility of concluding the procedure at first reading. Both institutions have paid close attention to the “Joint declaration on the practical arrangements for the new co-decision procedure” of May 1999, which encourages appropriate contacts with the aim of “bringing the legislative procedure to a conclusion as quickly as possible” (Christine Neuhold, 2001).

Each Council Presidency is in contact with the responsible EP committee, and the respective Minister approaches the committee to present the priorities of the Presidency's programme and also illustrates the particular achievements at the end of the six-month period.

Even after Amsterdam there are no clear procedural guidelines for the first reading. The most contentious question is how to mandate the representatives of the EP for negotiating with the Council. An additional open question is which members of the Council and EP hierarchy should meet with whom. At the first reading as a means of speeding up the procedure the EP sees the possibility of reaching an agreement, but not something that should be accepted at any cost.

Within the conciliation procedure a process of exchange has developed where both sides are open to make concessions, but at a price that differs according to each set of negotiations (Shackleton 1999, p. 331). The procedure has evolved significantly since its introduction by the Maastricht Treaty, “where a lot was not written down” and even the basic procedural issues were not always clear.

Considering the problems of conciliation, the so-called trialogue meetings are of great significance during its preparation. These sessions, neither the Treaty nor the EP Rules of Procedure, have been formed to an extent under the motto “necessity is the mother of invention”. They were answer back to the gap left in the Treaty between the Council's second reading and convention of the conciliation committee.

The Treaty provisions do not require what, should happen after the Council has given its view on the EP's second-reading amendments and before the delegations meet in the conciliation committee. There were occasional bilateral contacts between Council and EP during the first year and a half after the Maastricht Treaty came into effect, but no structured dialogue. As a result both institutions attempted to find compromises in a room, which could hold over 100 persons. Only in the second half year after the Treaty came into effect was the conclusion finally drawn that this was not an efficient forum for institutional dialogue and that conciliation needed to be prepared by a smaller group (Shackleton 1999,本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。