A.O. Chetverikov. The Legislation and the Legal Acts of the European Union under the Treaty of Lisbon

Abstract: The Treaty of Lisbon signed on 13 December 2007 marks a new stage in the European integration and the development of the European Union law. Along with the numerous reforms of the institutional framework of the European Union (EU) the Treaty of Lisbon has introduced several important changes into the system of legal acts which the EU institutions are empowered to adopt in all fields of the Union competencies. The present article has as its purpose to describe and clarify for a Russian reader a new system of the EU legal instruments including their new classification on legislative and non-legislative acts. The article starts with the analysis of the legal nature and distinctive features of each of the acts provided for adoption by the EU institutions: European Parliament, European Council, Council, European Commission, Court of Justice of the European Union, European Central Bank and Court of Auditors. The acts concerned include the legal instruments both of binding nature (regulations, directives, decisions) and the instruments which have not binding force (recommendations and opinions). All the acts mentioned above preserve their initial features existing since 1958 (entry into force of the Rome Treaties of 1957) with some changes for the decisions. The new rules introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon provide for a distinction between the legislative and non-legislative acts unknown before in the EU law. Among the acts of the latter category the Treaty of Lisbon also singles out the implementing and delegated acts adopted as a general rule by the European Commission. Basing on the rules of the Treaty of Lisbon the article proposes a theoretical definition of the term “EU legislative act” as a legal instrument adopted by the European Parliament and/or Council under the legislative procedure in the form of the regulation, directive or decision. The article also gives a legal description of the EU documents which officially do not form part of the “legal acts” of the European Union but nevertheless are adopted by the EU institutions, bodies, agencies and offices, sometimes as the sui generis acts: interinstitutional agreements, rules of procedure, guidelines, communications, white papers, green papers, conclusions, codes of conduct etc. The whole system of the EU legal acts and other legal instruments is summed up in the table contained in the annex to the article.