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International Organization
and the Textile Committee delivered a favorable opinion on that proposal.4 The Commission subsequently adopted a decision authorizing the importation of textile products from China in a quantity exceeding its allotted 1995 quota, reducing the corresponding amount of import quantities for 1996. In May of that year, Portugal brought an action for annulment of the Commission’s decision before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It claimed that the Commission did not have the authority to change the quota limits without the Council’s assent and had thus violated the Council Regulation. The ECJ concurred and, on 19 November 1998, concluded that the Commission had exceeded its powers under Regulation 3030/93, and annulled the decision.5 If not for the intervention of the ECJ, the Commission and the Textile Committee, an example of a so-called “comitology” committee, might well have colluded to set policy against the Council’s wishes. This conclusion is somewhat surprising, as it contradicts the textbook view that comitology committees are instruments of the Council used to restrict, not enhance, the Commission’s executive powers. Indeed, comitology committees are widely regarded as key actors in the EU’s unique system of delegation within the executive branch, but observers are divided as to what impact, if any, they have on policy outcomes. With this article, we seek to sort out this debate and more clearly place comitology committees within the EU’s system of governance. We address three key questions: (1) Do comitology committees really exert in uence over policy outcomes? (2) If so, under what conditions do they tend to favor the Council or the Commission? and (3) What are the implications of this analysis for accountability and transparency within the EU? We show that, while the oversight process may force the Commission to moderate its proposals, overall comitology committees move outcomes toward the Commission’s preferred policies rather than those of the Council. If, as we suggest, the EU governmental process could increase its accountability and legitimacy by moving toward a system of more separate powers—in which the Commission plays the role of the civil service bureaucracy—then comitology committees are a positive force. Indeed, they are a second-best solution, falling short only of complete Commission autonomy in implementing EU law and policies, to the problem of constrained delegation within the EU’s multi-headed executive branch. To explore this assertion, we rst review the debate over comitology and detail the technical features of the different committee procedures. In the next section, we describe the model used in our analysis and present our general ndings; we follow with possible extensions of the model, and conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of our analysis for delegation in the EU system of separate powers.

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