ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how far down the path towards legislative power the European Parliament travelled under the co-operation procedure of the Single European Act and in its first experiences of co-decision under the Treaty on EU (TEU). The chapter is based upon the premiss that if the significance of the co-decision procedure is to be understood and assessed a prior knowledge of the co-operation procedure is required. It is important to understand exactly how the co-operation procedure operated in the 1989-94 Parliament and to assess its actual impact upon Community legislation. In recognition of the importance of first reading, Parliament's 1986 rules assumed that legislation subject to co-operation would 'in theory have absolute priority for consideration in committee. The need for qualitative assessments of the legislative impact of Parliament under the co-operation procedure has been widely appreciated within Parliament itself.
