Resources Postings

From time to time I intend to publish information about a resource. It might be anything - a web site or page that is useful for information-gathering, for example - but will ususally be web-based.

My first featured resource will be helpful to lobbyists who follow Brussels' notorious "comitology" committees (see Wikipedia if you don't know what comitology is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comitology). I only discovered this resource very recently, having long been deeply suspicious of comitology committees and their workings. It's the European Commission's comitology register, and it contains not only a list of the scores of committees, but more importantly, a search function that allows access to many of the key comitology documents.

You can search by various criteria. I find it most useful to search by committee. The committees are organised by Directorate-General of the European Commission by which the committee is chaired. The drop-down box is very badly designed, but if you click on it and type in "E", for example, you come to the committees chaired by DG EAC (Education and Culture). Further down, you come to ENTR (DG Enterprise) and then ENV (DG Environment).

The most interesting type of document you can find is the Voting Results - they often contain details of votes taken in committee, including how many Member States voted in favour of a Commission proposal, against, or abstained. This, combined with the information on the number of votes under QMV (Qualified Majority Voting), can often tell you pretty precisely which Member States voted how, despite the secrecy of the vote.

Pretty rudimentary functionality, but quite powerful. I'm finding it very useful, as it eliminates the need to rely on busy friends and contacts for leaked copies...

Here's the link:

http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regcomitology/registre.cfm?CL=en