Implementing acts and comitology: how administrative power shapes outcomes after legislation

By Paul Shotton, Advocacy Strategy

When “technical execution” becomes decisive

Implementing acts are often described as the administrative end of the policy process: technical measures designed to ensure that EU law is applied uniformly across Member States. This framing is misleading. While implementing acts are formally about execution rather than amendment, they are frequently where policy outcomes are fixed in practice. They determine how rules are applied, how burdens are distributed, and how ambition translates into day-to-day reality.

For advocacy teams, implementing acts require a different mindset from both OLP and delegated acts. Influence is less about political positioning and more about coordination, timing, and access to information. Power sits less with headline actors and more with administrations, national experts, and internal Commission processes that are rarely visible from the outside.

Why implementing acts matter more than they appear

Implementing acts cannot amend the basic act, not even its non-essential elements. That limitation often leads organisations to underestimate their importance. In practice, however, implementing acts can define reporting frameworks, approval procedures, templates, methodologies for execution, and administrative conditions that shape whether a policy is workable, proportionate, or effective.

In many files, the difference between a policy that functions well and one that creates friction lies in implementation detail rather than legislative intent. Implementing acts are where those details are settled. Treating them as purely technical follow-up risks missing where outcomes are quietly locked in.

The basic act as the first implementing act strategy

As with delegated acts, effective engagement with implementing acts starts much earlier than the drafting of the act itself. The basic act defines whether implementation powers are conferred, how narrowly or broadly, and under which comitology procedure. It also determines which

committee will be involved and what room Member States have to intervene.

Reading the basic act with an implementation lens helps identify where discretion will later sit and where political choices have effectively been deferred. Even towards the end of OLP, there is often still scope to influence how much is left to implementation, what is framed as “uniform execution”, and which safeguards are built in. Once these choices are fixed, options later narrow sharply.

When the Commission starts thinking about implementation

A recurring insight from practice is that the Commission often starts thinking about implementation requirements before the basic act is adopted. During legislative drafting, and especially as negotiations close, services already anticipate what will need to be operationalised and how sensitive that might be.

By the time an implementing act enters comitology, many assumptions are already embedded. This is why advocacy that waits for a committee agenda or a draft text often arrives too late to shape core choices. Early engagement means asking, in advance, what systems, data, forms, or procedures will be required — and which services are likely to design them.

Evidence without impact assessments

Formal impact assessments are extremely rare for implementing acts. This does not reduce the role of evidence; it changes how evidence enters the process. Technical feasibility, administrative burden, consistency with existing systems, and alignment with agency advice often matter more than formal cost-benefit analysis.

A strategic question for organisations is therefore whether they are prepared to invest in the kind of data and technical input that implementing acts reward. This is not a default activity. It only makes sense where the issue is genuinely high priority and where early technical input can realistically influence design choices.

Comitology: coordination, not confrontation

Comitology is often misunderstood as a voting arena. While votes do matter, the system operates primarily through coordination and consensus-building. Reverse-majority logic means that blocking the Commission requires a qualified majority against the proposal — a high bar that is rarely reached.

This has important strategic consequences. The objective is rarely to win a vote. More often, it is to shape the conditions under which consensus forms, to support amendments that make a proposal workable, or to create enough concern that the Commission adjusts its approach rather than pushing ahead unchanged.

Appeal committees exist, but they are not a standard advocacy target. They escalate issues politically and often increase the Commission’s leverage rather than reducing it. Treating escalation as the default strategy misunderstands how comitology actually works.

Member States as the core actors

Implementing acts place Member States at the centre of the process. But effective engagement requires moving beyond generic references to “Member States” and understanding roles and constellations. National experts may appear in expert groups, comitology committees, and Council working parties, with influence shifting depending on context.

Instructions are often shaped in capitals, but debated and tested in Brussels. Understanding where discretion lies, who coordinates internally, and how technical and political considerations interact is essential. Influence depends less on formal access and more on whether national experts have the information and arguments they need to act.

Like-minded countries and the limits of support

Identifying supportive Member States is important, but support is rarely unconditional. Political alignment, issue sensitivity, domestic priorities, and administrative capacity all shape whether a country can act, even when it broadly agrees with the objective.

Effective strategies therefore ask not only who agrees, but who can realistically engage, when, and at what cost. Understanding what motivates support — and what might prevent it — helps avoid overestimating coalition strength and underestimating political risk.

Access to documents as the real bottleneck

One of the defining challenges of implementing acts is access to information. Drafts circulate unevenly, registers are partial and delayed, and formal transparency mechanisms rarely provide real-time insight. Timing, rather than formal openness, is the critical constraint.

This makes networks essential. Relationships with Commission desks, national administrations, and trusted intermediaries are often the only way to understand what is being shaped and why. Transparency requests can complement this, but they are not a substitute for sustained relationship-building.

Working through national networks without overloading them

For many organisations, national partners are the most realistic route into capitals. These relationships, however, are finite resources. Asking partners to engage on multiple implementing acts simultaneously risks diluting effectiveness and goodwill.

Strategic use of national networks means being selective, clear about priorities, and conscious of what partners need in return. Providing concise briefings, drafting support, or technical evidence can make engagement easier and more sustainable for partners who operate under their own constraints.

Timing and knowing when not to engage

As with delegated acts, timing defines the outer limits of influence. Once an implementing act moves into late-stage comitology or appeal, options narrow quickly. Engagement can still succeed, but usually only where issues are sufficiently salient to justify political intervention and where risks are clearly articulated.

An important discipline is recognising when the window has closed and stepping back rather than expending resources on low-probability outcomes. Implementing acts reward selectivity as much as persistence.

Implementing acts as a test of administrative realism

Implementing acts expose a different kind of power in EU policymaking: administrative, incremental, and often opaque. They reward advocacy that is early, technically grounded, and realistic about what coordination can achieve. Mastering comitology procedures is useful, but insufficient on its own.

For advocacy organisations, the real challenge is judgement. Which implementing acts matter enough to justify investment? Where can early engagement realistically shape outcomes? And when does escalation create more risk than leverage?

Understanding implementing acts is ultimately about understanding how policy is made operational. Influence lies less in formal rights and more in timing, access, and the ability to work with the system as it actually functions, rather than as it appears on paper.