IMMC.COM%282026%29469%20final.ENG.xhtml.1_EN_ACT_part1

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 10.9.2026

COM(2026) 469 final

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the working of committees in 2025

{SWD(2026) 276 final}

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the working of committees in 2025

1.Introduction

The Commission presents its annual report on the working of committees in 2025 in line with Article 10(2) of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers 1 (the ‘Comitology Regulation’).

The report gives an overview of developments in 2025 in the ‘comitology’ system, which refers to the committees that the Commission asks to deliver an opinion on draft implementing acts. These committees are composed of Member States’ representatives and chaired by the Commission. They follow different operating procedures depending on the relevant basic legal act empowering the Commission to adopt implementing acts (see Table II).

The report provides a summary of the committees’ activities. It is accompanied by a staff working document containing detailed statistics on the work of the individual committees for each policy sector 2 . It highlights the main changes and trends observed on an annual basis, presenting overall figures on meetings, written procedures, opinions delivered (i.e. positive, negative or no opinion) and acts adopted. It also provides an overview of cases referred to the Appeal Committee and the exercise of the right of scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council (the ‘co-legislators’) under Article 11 of the Comitology Regulation. Information is also provided on the measures adopted under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny.

2.Overview of developments in the comitology system in 2025

2.1.General developments

In 2025, comitology committees continued to operate under the procedures set out in the Comitology Regulation, i.e. the advisory procedure (Article 4) and the examination procedure (Article 5), as well as the regulatory procedure with scrutiny set out in Article 5a 3 of the Comitology Decision 4 .

All meetings, regardless of their format (in person, remote or hybrid), are listed as meetings in the Comitology Register 5 , and the summary record specifies the format of the meeting.

The Commission Work Programme 2025, presented on 11 February 2025, proposed to withdraw the Commission proposal on the alignment of acts still referring to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny to the legal framework introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon 6 as well as the Commission proposal of 14 February 2017 7 aiming to amend the Comitology Regulation concerning the Appeal Committee and addressing ‘no opinion’ situations in sensitive areas. Withdrawal was justified by the lack of progress in the negotiations, given that the respective positions of the European Parliament and the Council remained far apart. The Commission withdrew these two proposals on 6 October 2025 8 .

However, this does not call into question the need to proceed with the alignment of the remaining empowerments for regulatory procedure with scrutiny, as agreed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in the 2016 Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking 9 .
The Commission therefore continues to align such existing empowerments to the Lisbon Treaty in the context of the substantive revision/amendment of the individual legislative acts that still contain such empowerments.

In the Communication on Simplification 10 and its Simplification Progress Report 11 , the Commission indicated the need for a closer scrutiny of delegated and implementing acts to identify whether such acts are legally required and whether they would simplify the regulatory framework or are necessary to achieve the EU policy objectives. In the same vein, the Commission also invited the co-legislators to apply the same principles when considering new empowerments for new legislation.

2.2.Case-law developments

Hearing an appeal to the Pollinis judgment (Case C-726/22 P), the Court of Justice clarified the scope of the exception relating to the concept of ongoing decision-making process in the context of a comitology committee procedure. The case, which is relevant in terms of the transparency of comitology procedures and documents, concerned access to document requests 12 including to documents related to the work of the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (SCoPAFF), recording the positions of the representatives of Member States (in the committee) and their exchanges with the Commission, which the Commission refused to disclose inter alia on the ground of the protection of the ongoing decision-making procedure. At first instance, the Court dismissed the premise that the confidentiality of comitology procedures, as reflected in certain provisions of the Standard Rules of Procedure of comitology committees, would provide a general presumption of non-disclosure under Article 4(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 13 .

On appeal, the Court focused only on the specific aspect of the exception related to the decision-making procedure at stake and whether it should be classified as ongoing or close. It ruled that the procedure could not be considered as ongoing based on the mere fact that the comitology committee had not yet been able to adopt a position on a guidance document drawn up by EFSA in 2013 and had requested its revision before resuming the comitology procedure. According to the Court of Justice, that revision meant that the specific object of a future decision was not yet sufficiently defined. As a result, the risk that the disclosure of the requested document might undermine the decision-making process was, by definition, hypothetical given that it would, in practice, be impossible to ascertain whether the content of that document actually relates to that decision-making process. Consequently, the appeal lodged by the Commission was dismissed.

3.Overview of activities

The figures indicated in the following sections are based on the findings presented in detail in the accompanying staff working document.

3.1.Number of committees

14 This report focuses exclusively on comitology committees, which have been set up by the legislator to assist the Commission in its exercise of the implementing powers, conferred upon it by basic legal acts. Other entities, in particular expert groups set up by the Commission, are not covered in this report. Table I shows the number of comitology committees that existed during the period of 1 January to 31 December 2025, with the figures for the previous year added for comparison.

TABLE I — Total number of committees

Commission department	2024	2025
AGRI (Agriculture and Rural Development)	11	10
BUDG (Budget)	2	2
CLIMA (Climate Action)	7	5
CNECT (Communications Networks, Content and Technology)	17	16
COMP (Competition)	2	2
DEFIS (Defence Industry and Space)	10	11
DIGIT (Digital Services)	1	1
EAC (Education and Culture)	4	4
ECFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs)	2	2
ECHO (Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection)	2	2
EMPL (Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion)	6	4
ENER (Energy)	16	15
ENEST (Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood)	-	3
ENV (Environment)	29	31
ESTAT (Eurostat)	1	1
FISMA (Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)	11	10
FPI (Service for Foreign Policy Instruments)	1	1
GROW (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)	46	46
HERA (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response)	1	1
HOME (Migration and Home Affairs)	25	28
INTPA (International Partnerships)	3	3
JUST (Justice and Consumers)	32	33
MARE (Maritime Affairs and Fisheries)	3	3
MENA (Middle East, North of Africa and the Gulf)	-	1
MOVE (Mobility and Transport)	35	33
NEAR (Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations) (split into MENA and ENEST as of 1.2.2025)	3	-
OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office)	1	1
REFORM (Structural Reform Support)	1	0
REGIO (Regional and Urban Policy)	2	3
RTD (Research and Innovation)	17	19
SANTE (Health and Food Safety)	33	34
SG (Secretariat-General) Including the Appeal Committee 15	4	4
TAXUD (Taxation and Customs Union)	27	28
TRADE (Trade)	13	13
TOTAL	368	370

In 2025, there were 370 comitology committees, including committee configurations 16 . While several new committees were established by new legislation entering into force in 2025, the overall number remained stable compared to 2024 (368 committees) as some committees were also abolished during the year 17 .

Table II shows a breakdown of the committees in 2025 by the type of procedure under which they operated (i.e. advisory procedure, examination procedure, regulatory procedure with scrutiny). Committees with multiple procedures 18 are indicated separately.

TABLE II — Number of committees by procedure

Commission department	Type of procedure
	Examination	Advisory	Regulatory with scrutiny	Multiple procedures	TOTAL
AGRI	7	0	0	3	10
BUDG	1	1	0	0	2
CLIMA	2	0	0	3	5
CNECT	10	1	0	5	16
COMP	0	1	0	1	2
DEFIS	4	0	0	7	11
DIGIT	1	0	0	0	1
EAC	3	0	0	1	4
ECFIN	1	0	0	1	2
ECHO	2	0	0	0	2
EMPL	0	1	1	2	4
ENER	7	2	0	6	15
ENEST	3	0	0	0	3
ENV	16	0	1	14	31
ESTAT	0	0	0	1	1
FISMA	5	0	2	3	10
FPI	1	0	0	0	1
GROW	16	2	2	26	46
HERA	1	0	0	0	1
HOME	22	2	0	4	28
INTPA	3	0	0	0	3
JUST	21	7	0	5	33
MARE	1	0	0	2	3
MENA	1	0	0	0	1
MOVE	14	2	1	16	33
OLAF	1	0	0	0	1
REGIO	0	1	0	2	3
RTD	13	0	0	6	19
SANTE	15	0	0	19	34
SG Including the Appeal Committee	3	0	0	1	4
TAXUD	12	0	0	16	28
TRADE	5	2	0	6	13
TOTAL:	191	22	7	150	370

3.2. Number of meetings and written procedures

The intensity of committees’ activity is primarily defined by the number of committee meetings held and written procedures 19 conducted. These are shown in Table III.

TABLE III — Number of meetings and written procedures

Commission department	Number of committees	Meetings		Written procedures
		2024	2025	2024	2025
AGRI	10	86	72	2	9
BUDG	2	4	4	0	0
CLIMA	5	9	9	11	6
CNECT	16	28	30	13	10
COMP	2	4	6	0	0
DEFIS	11	49	37	9	15
DIGIT	1	1	2	0	1
EAC	4	10	10	18	17
ECFIN	2	21	18	0	0
ECHO	2	5	4	4	3
EMPL	4	0	0	0	0
ENER	15	10	29	20	12
ENEST	3	-	13	-	6
ENV	31	28	34	9	6
ESTAT	1	3	3	5	9
FISMA	10	9	5	11	16
FPI	1	3	3	0	0
GROW	46	35	46	43	39
HERA	1	0	0	0	0
HOME	28	53	71	22	24
INTPA	3	21	22	12	7
JUST	33	26	67	6	7
MARE	3	4	3	6	2
MOVE	33	39	43	13	18
MENA	1	-	4	-	2
NEAR	(3)	17	-	15	-
OLAF	1	0	0	0	0
REGIO	3	1	1	1	1
RTD	19	56	60	222	160
SANTE	34	107	112	704	659
SG Including the Appeal Committee	4	5	6	0	0
TAXUD	28	30	32	30	42
TRADE	13	29	40	35	51
TOTAL:	370	693 20	786	1211	1122

There were 786 meetings in 2025, which is more than in 2024 (693 meetings), and 1122 written procedures, which is less than the year before (1211 written procedures).

3.3.Number of opinions and implementing acts

This report also gives an indication of the specific output of the committees, which is another important indicator of the level of activity.

TABLE IV — Number of opinions and implementing acts adopted 21

Commission department	Opinions 22		Implementing acts adopted		Parliament resolutions /Council decisions (Art. 11)
	2024	2025	2024	2025	2025
AGRI	86	70	76	72	0
BUDG	0	0	0	0	0
CLIMA	20	16	17	18	0
CNECT	43	59	43	58	0
COMP	5	5	5	5	0
DEFIS	18	18	12	15	0
DIGIT	0	1	0	1	0
EAC	20	20	18	17	0
ECFIN	32	42	32	41	0
ECHO	5	5	5	5	0
EMPL	0	0	0	0	0
ENER	21	24	18	19	0
ENEST	-	27	-	26	0
ENV	20	17	17	22	1
ESTAT	15	15	13	12	0
FISMA	12	16	11	13	0
FPI	0	0	0	0	0
GROW	127	82	83	103	0
HERA	0	0	0	0	0
HOME	45	46	54	40	0
INTPA	103	96	103	93	1
JUST	13	15	11	15	0
MARE	11	5	10	7	0
MENA	-	21	-	21	0
MOVE	43	40	46	36	0
NEAR	63	-	62	-	0
OLAF	0	0	0	0	0
REGIO	1	1	1	1	0
RTD	221	160	209	129	0
SANTE	1076	1176	969	1133	0
SG*	11	11	0	0	11
TAXUD	36	56	44	39	0
TRADE	82	119	79	103	0
TOTAL:	2129	2163	1938	2044	13

*Including opinions delivered by the Appeal Committee. To avoid double-counting, adopted implementing acts passing through the Appeal Committee are counted towards the first-level committees in the respective policy areas. See also Section 3.4 and Table V.

Table IV shows overall figures on the formal opinions delivered by the committees and the subsequent implementing acts adopted by the Commission 23 . It also indicates the cases where either the European Parliament or the Council have exercised their right of scrutiny under Article 11 of the Comitology Regulation.

The committees delivered 2163 opinions 24 in 2025, which is a small increase compared with 2024 (2129). Similarly, the 2044 implementing acts adopted 25 following a committee procedure were more than in the previous year (1938).

Where a basic act is adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure, the European Parliament and the Council have a right of scrutiny under Article 11 of the Comitology Regulation whereby each of them can indicate whether a draft implementing act exceeds the implementing powers granted by the basic act. In 2025, the European Parliament adopted thirteen resolutions based on Article 11 of the Comitology Regulation. The Council did not exercise its right under this provision in 2025.

3.4.Meetings of the Appeal Committee

As shown in Table V below, the Appeal Committee met 6 times during 2025 and discussed 11 draft implementing acts which the Commission referred to it. Voting at the meetings in all cases and not using written procedures, it delivered a ‘no opinion’ in all cases 26 . Following the Appeal Committee’s respective votes, the Commission adopted 10 of the implementing acts (two of the adoptions fell on 2026), while one draft act was ultimately not adopted as the underlying market authorisation request was withdrawn.

TABLE V — activity of the appeal committee

Commission department	Number of meetings/written consultations of the Appeal Committee		Number of opinions 27 of the Appeal Committee		Number of acts adopted following an opinion of the Appeal Committee
	2024	2025	2024	2025	2024	2025
MOVE	1/0	0/0	1	0	1	0
SANTE	4/0	6/0	10	11	10	8
TOTAL:	5/0	6/0	11	11	11	8

3.5.Use of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny

The Comitology Regulation maintained the effects of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny for the purposes of existing basic legal acts referring to it 28 . This procedure can no longer be introduced into new legislation, but it still appears in several existing basic legal acts and will continue to apply under those acts until these empowerments will be adapted to the Treaty on the functioning of the Union (TFEU) and possibly changed into empowerments for either delegated or implementing acts.

In 2025, 53 measures were adopted under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny (see Table VI), which is less than in 2024 (67 measures). The right to oppose acts under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny was not used by the co-legislators in 2025 (for comparison, in 2024, they used this right twice).

TABLE VI — Number of measures adopted according to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny

Commission department	Regulatory procedure with scrutiny – measures adopted 29	European Parliament opposed adoption of draft measures	Council opposed adoption of draft measures
AGRI	0	0	0
BUDG	0	0	0
CLIMA	0	0	0
CNECT	0	0	0
COMP	0	0	0
DEFIS	0	0	0
EAC	0	0	0
ECHO	0	0	0
ECON	0	0	0
EMPL	0	0	0
ENER	4	0	0
ENEST	0	0	0
ENV	3	0	0
ESTAT	1	0	0
FISMA	3	0	0
FPI	0	0	0
GROW	7	0	0
HERA	0	0	0
HOME	0	0	0
INTPA	0	0	0
JUST	0	0	0
MARE	0	0	0
MOVE	0	0	0
MENA	0	0	0
NEAR	0	0	0
OLAF	0	0	0
REGIO	0	0	0
RTD	0	0	0
SANTE	35	0	0
SG	0	0	0
TAXUD	0	0	0
TRADE	0	0	0
TOTAL	53	0	0

4.Conclusion

The committees continued to work in 2025 at a similar level of intensity as the previous year. There were 370 committees, which held 786 meetings, carried out 1122 written procedures and delivered 2163 opinions, leading to the adoption of 2044 implementing acts and 53 measures under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. Enabling Member States to exercise their control powers in line with the Comitology Regulation, the committees provide valuable assistance to the Commission in exercising the implementing powers conferred on it by the co-legislators.

The Commission invites the European Parliament and the Council to take note of this report.

(1) OJ L 55, 28.2.2011, p. 13.

(2) As covered by the Commission departments dealing with the respective policy areas.

(3) For further details on the use of this procedure, see Section 3.5.

(4) Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (OJ L 184, 17.7.1999, p. 23).

(5) https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/comitology-register/screen/home

(6) Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council adapting a number of legal acts providing for the use of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny to Articles 290 and 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, COM (2016) 799 final.

(7) Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers, COM (2017) 085 final.

(8) C/2025/5423, Withdrawal of Commission proposals, OJ C of 6.10.2025.

(9) Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission on Better Law-Making, OJ L 123, pp. 1–14, point 27 thereof.

(10) A Simpler and Faster Europe, Communication on Implementation and Simplification, 12.2.2025, COM(2025)47

(11) 2025 Annual Overview Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement, 21.10.2025, COM(2025)871

(12) The documents requested related to a guidance document drawn up by EFSA in 2013, which was the starting point of the comitology procedure in question. This document had been discussed for several years within the SCoPAFF, without agreement having been reached on its text amongst the Member States and without that document having been adopted by the Commission. In 2019, the Commission asked the EFSA to revise its guidance document to take account of recent scientific developments.

(13) In the first-instance judgment which has been upheld by the Court of justice, the General Court ruled that ‘the comitology procedures, and in particular the Standard Rules of Procedure, do not in themselves require access to documents showing the individual position of the Member States within the SCoPAFF to be refused in order to protect the decision-making process of that committee, within the meaning of the first subparagraph of Article 4(3) of Regulation No 1049/2001, which, however, does not in any way prevent the Commission, in duly justified cases, from refusing access to documents which show the individual position of the Member States within that committee where their disclosure would be likely specifically to undermine the interests protected by the exceptions provided for in Article 4 of Regulation No 1049/2001’ (point 107 of the judgment).

(14) Some committees existed only during part of the year depending on the exact start/end of the validity of their basic legal act.

(15) The Appeal Committee is registered in the Comitology Register as a committee under the responsibility of the Secretariat- General. In practice, however, it is managed by the departments concerned.

(16) In a few basic acts the legislator has provided for specific configurations of the committee. These are presented individually in the staff working document and each of them is counted separately into the overall figure of committees. Without counting the individual configurations separately, the total number of committees was 318.

(17) In some cases new legislation entering into force during the year has replaced (repealed) old legislation and established a new committee for the same policy area and thus an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ committee existed in different parts of the year under the respective basic acts; these are both counted for the year. The end of the year figure of committees (362), cleaned from such ‘duplication effects’ (and also excluding committees that were abolished in the course of the year) is consequently smaller.

(18) This is the case where the basic act or acts envisage(s) the use of different comitology procedures for different implementing measures. The table presents the legal situation as provided for by the basic acts; in practice it can happen that where the basic acts provides for different procedures a committee only acts under one of the procedures to adopt its opinion on draft implementing acts in a given year.

(19) Committee voting can take place at a regular committee meeting or, in duly justified cases, by written procedure, in line with Article 3(5) of the Comitology Regulation.

(20) A factual mistake occurred in COM(2025)642 and the corresponding SWD(2025) 334: the correct number of FPI meetings is 3 (instead of 2) and consequently the total number of meetings in 2024 was 693 (instead of 692).

(21) As regards adopted implementing acts, the indication of Commission departments (policy areas) means that the acts in question were prepared (discussed and/or voted on) in a committee managed by the respective Commission department; in some cases the actual adoption of the act was formally ensured by another Commission department.

(22) A vote resulting in ‘no opinion’ is counted in the total number of opinions as this is one possible outcome in the committee.

(23) The number of opinions and implementing acts/measures in any given year can differ; the reasons for this are explained in the introduction to the accompanying staff working document.

(24) The overwhelming majority of the votes in the committees were positive, a ‘no opinion’ was delivered in 29 cases (including those eventually referred to the Appeal Committee). There was 1 negative vote delivered in the context of an advisory procedure (Commission Implementing Decision on reducing from European Union financing certain expenditure incurred by the Member States under the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD); consequently the act was adopted by the Commission.

(25) 716 of these acts amended already existing previous acts.

(26) Further details are available in the accompanying staff working document.

(27) The term ‘opinion’ also includes the scenario where the formal outcome is a ‘no opinion’ meaning that there is no required majority in either sense. The number of ‘no opinions’ is indicated in parentheses.

(28) Article 12, second paragraph of the Comitology Regulation.

(29) The measure is attributed in the table to the Commission department that managed the committee preparing the measure. This might be different from the one that formally adopted it. See also footnote 20.