How the Commission takes decisions: the four procedures

Collegiality: one College, one collective responsibility

The Commission acts as a College of the President and the other Members. The rule comes from the Treaties: Article 250 TFEU says the Commission acts by a majority of its Members and leaves the quorum to its Rules of Procedure, which Article 249(1) TFEU requires it to adopt and publish. The current Rules are Commission Decision (EU) 2024/3080 of 4 December 2024.

Two consequences follow. Each Member must respect, promote and support the positions the Commission has adopted (Article 2(4)), and any position diverging from one already adopted must be approved collegially before it is presented to another institution, a Member State or a third party (Article 2(5)). The President's Working Methods for 2024-2029 put the same rule plainly: a diverging position needs a formal endorsement by the College.

The four procedures at a glance

Article 6(1) of the Rules lists the four procedures and points each one to its own section of Chapter III. The table sets out what each section provides.

The Commission's own page adds the condition that matters most for the last two: empowerment and delegation are for routine management or administrative measures "in areas of limited discretion, provided that they do not raise political difficulties". Written, empowerment and delegation acts are all recorded in day notes, which are referred to in the minutes of the next College meeting (Article 42).

The oral procedure and College meetings

Under Article 7(2), the Commission meets "as a general rule, once a week" (ordinary meetings) and whenever the President deems it necessary (extraordinary meetings). The Commission's page says the College usually meets on Wednesday morning in Brussels, and on Tuesday during Parliament's plenary sessions in Strasbourg. The Working Methods count the Strasbourg weeks at 12 a year.

The President convenes the meetings and sets each agenda (Articles 7(1) and 8(1)). A Member who wants an item on the agenda must ask the President at least nine working days before the meeting (Article 9(5)). Items are prepared at the weekly meeting of Heads of Cabinet, known as the Hebdo, which the Secretary-General chairs (Article 10(1)). Before the Hebdo come the special meetings of cabinet members (RSCC), the Interinstitutional Relations Group (GRI) and the Group for External Coordination (EXCO). In principle, a point agreed at one of these preparatory meetings may not be reopened later (Article 10(5)).

The majority is counted against all Members, not those present. With 27 Members, as the Commission's College page lists them, that means at least 14 for a quorum and at least 14 votes in favour (our arithmetic). In practice the College usually decides by consensus; a vote is held at the initiative of the President or at the request of any Member (Article 13(2)). In exceptional circumstances the President may let Members take part by telecommunication, and they then count as present (Article 12(2)).

The written procedure

Most acts never reach the meeting table. Under the written procedure the draft is circulated to all Members with an expiry date, and silence is consent.

The Secretary-General initiates the procedure after checking the agreement of the responsible Member and, where necessary, the President (Article 18(1)). A positive opinion from the Legal Service and the other services consulted is required first, and it may be express or tacit (Article 18(2)). Any Member may ask the Secretary-General to suspend an ongoing written procedure (Article 25), and any Member may ask the President to bring the draft to a College meeting instead (Article 17(3)).

Empowerment and delegation: who may act for the College

The two procedures look alike and are tested on their differences. Empowerment goes to a Member of the Commission; delegation goes straight to an official at the head of a service.

There is also an ad hoc empowerment (Article 35): limited in time, for one-off and specific measures whose substance the Commission has already determined, exercised in agreement with the President. It is used, for example, to adopt an act approved in principle at a meeting once all the language versions are ready. Ad hoc empowerments may not be subdelegated.

The 2024 Rules replaced the 2000 Rules, and the numbers changed

Decision (EU) 2024/3080 was published in the Official Journal on 5 December 2024 and entered into force the day after (Article 71). Article 70 deleted Articles 1 to 28 of the old Rules of Procedure, Decision C(2000) 3614, which had been recast in 2010 and last amended in 2020 (recital 1). The new Rules also merged in the old "rules giving effect", which is why the procedures now run to many more articles. A search of EUR-Lex on 26 October 2026 found no amending act, only a corrigendum dated 26 March 2025.

The 2024-2029 Working Methods: Executive Vice-Presidents and Project Groups

The Rules are the law; the President's Working Methods, P(2024) 5 of 1 December 2024, are the political organisation on top. They do not describe the four procedures (they refer to the Rules), but they set the structure of the College.

• Executive Vice-Presidents. The President has empowered five Executive Vice-Presidents and the High Representative/Vice-President to steer and coordinate six fields: Clean, Just and Competitive Transition; Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy; Prosperity and Industrial Strategy; Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness; and Cohesion and Reforms.
• Project Groups. The President sets them up, on a proposal from the Secretariat-General, to coordinate key cross-cutting initiatives. The President's decision fixes the mandate, composition, duration and working methods and names the lead Member, who chairs it. Article 3(6) of the Rules gives the President the same power to set up groups of Members.
• Attendance. Members must attend every College meeting; only the President may release them, and they cannot be replaced.
• Voting. The quorum is a majority of Members, decisions are generally consensual, and any Member may ask for a vote, cast in person.

The Secretariat-General

The Secretariat-General runs the machinery. Article 50 of the Rules makes the Secretary-General the President's assistant in reaching the Commission's priorities and in preparing and conducting College meetings, and the person who ensures the decision-making process runs smoothly. Elsewhere in the Rules the Secretary-General chairs the Hebdo (Article 10(1)), initiates written procedures and sets their time limits (Articles 18 and 19), draws up the minutes (Article 16) and keeps the registers of empowerments and delegations (Articles 34 and 40).

Article 50(7) also gives the Secretary-General the job of helping to ensure compliance with better regulation, relying on the Regulatory Scrutiny Board. The Working Methods call the Secretariat-General a Presidential service and, with the President's Cabinet, a guardian of collegiality.

How this is tested

The Commission's guidance to candidates names the Commission's governance, tasks, decision-making and procedures, including budget and human resources, as one of the knowledge test's three content areas (confirmed). We estimate that questions on this page turn on four kinds of fact: who receives a power (a Member or a Director-General), a number (quorum, nine working days, five or three working days), what stands adopted when, and the article numbering. Distractors are likely to be true facts from the neighbouring procedure.

Worked example 1 (our own)

Under the Commission's Rules of Procedure, to whom may the College directly delegate the power to adopt management or administrative acts of a routine and recurring nature? A) One or more Members of the Commission. B) One or more Directors-General or Heads of Service. C) The Secretary-General, acting alone. D) The weekly meeting of Heads of Cabinet.

Answer: B. Source: Decision (EU) 2024/3080, Article 36(1). Option A describes the empowerment procedure (Article 29(1)), not delegation.

Worked example 2 (our own)

What is the minimum time limit for an ordinary written procedure? A) 48 hours. B) Three working days. C) Five working days. D) Nine working days.

Answer: C. Source: Decision (EU) 2024/3080, Article 19(2). Three working days is the expedited procedure (Article 20(2)), nine working days the deadline for asking to add an item to a meeting agenda (Article 9(5)), and 48 hours the notice for documents for a special meeting of cabinet members (Article 11(3)).

For the Treaty side of the College's work, read the Commission's powers under Article 17 TEU; for the institution as a whole, see the European Commission hub. Terms such as Hebdo, empowerment and delegation are in the trilingual glossary. To check yourself in the real format, try the free 30-question test.