"Much Ado About Nothing?": Comitology as a Feature of EU Policy Implementation and its Effects on the Democratic Arena

Abstract: The previously neglected phenomenon of governance by committees has recently received increasing attention in the academic literature. This paper focuses on the consequences of the arrangements prevailing in the committees active in the implementing phase of EU-legislation on the practice of democracy and legitimacy. The so-called "comitology committees" can be seen as a good example of the tension between input- and output-based sources of legitimacy. On the one hand the EP has demanded its increased involvement in this system ever since these committees were established. On the other hand (preliminary) studies have shown that Members of the European Parliament seem to be overwhelmed with the scrutiny or even the filing of draftimplementing measures. This gives rise to the question of increasing the legitimacy of committee work and at the same time preserving the "efficiency" of this (presumably) co-operative form of decision making. This phenomenon is illustrated by meansof a case study of committees active in the field of health and consumer protection.;