The European Commission’s Power to Withdraw Legislative Proposals

Abstract This paper focuses on the EU’s (ordinary) legislative procedure and the complex institutional balance between its main actors. Specifically, it tries to answer the question of whether the European Commission possesses the power to withdraw its legislative proposals and, if it does, under which conditions it may exercise such a power. This issue has been controversial for a long time and had never been explicitly regulated in the Treaties nor in the case law of the European Court of Justice. While the Commission has practiced withdrawing legislative proposals for decades, the Court had to explicitly decide upon the legality of such a withdrawal for the first time only in 2015 pursuant to a political dispute (the so-called Macro-Financial Assistance case). While the Court confirmed the Commission’s power to withdraw as such and set some conditions for its exercise, it is not only the judgment itself – and the Court’s reasoning – that is up to debate; there are also numerous subquestions related to the power to withdraw that have remained unanswered. This paper will critically analyze the Court’s case law, investigate the Commission’s power to withdraw in general and try to answer the remaining questions.