I rapporti tra la Commissione e il Consiglio nella procedura di conclusione degli accordi internazionali

By definition, as confirmed by the two Vienna Conventions on the law of treaties, an international agreement is governed by international law. Among the aspects regulated by the latter is therefore also the procedure for its conclusion. However, international law leaves to the internal law of the subject concerned the identification of the organs and procedures from which derive the various manifestations of will that mark the different stages in the conclusion of the agreement, with a few exceptions, one of which is moreover well known. As regards States, this space is normally filled by constitutional provisions; for international organizations, the respective constituent treaties perform the same function, albeit with a considerably greater degree of parsimony. In EU law, from the very beginnings of the Community, the matter has been regulated in a rather detailed, almost constitutional manner, as befits an ‘order of a new kind’. Despite the changes that have occurred over time through the various revisions, the original framework established by Article 228 EEC has never been overturned: the plenary body, which in the version now referred to by Article 218 TFEU is the Council, holds the principal power, assisted by the European Commission in its capacity as negotiator, with a role—this indeed being the only aspect on which the revisions have intervened in a significant way—of consultation or approval for the European Parliament. Alongside this ‘ordinary’ procedure, primary law provides for certain ‘special’ procedures, whose distinguishing features are due either to the subject matter of the agreement (as in the case of the CFSP) or to its specific nature (such as the agreement on withdrawal from the Union). This chapter develops analysis of a single aspect of these procedures, both ‘ordinary’ and ‘special’: namely, the relationship between the Commission and the Council, understood as the reciprocal allocation of roles that the two institutions play, each within its own sphere, in the conclusion of the EU’s international agreements.