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Activities of the Legal Service
- The Commission’s legal adviser
- The Commission’s legal representative
- Helping to improve the quality of drafting of EU legislation
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Recasting
Recasting is like codification in that is brings together in a single new act a legislative act and all the amendments made to it. The new act passes through the full legislative process and repeals all the acts being recast. But unlike codification, recasting involves new substantive changes, as amendments are made to the original act during preparation of the recast text.
There are two types of recasting:
- vertical: one original act and its amendments are incorporated in a single new act;
- horizontal: two or more original acts covering related subjects - and the amendments to them - are incorporated in a single new act.
Rules on the use of the recasting technique are laid down in an interinstitutional agreement (signed on 28 November 2001) which provides for special procedures to enable the legislative authority to concentrate its attention on those parts of the legislative proposal which are new.
The first drafts of recasts are prepared by the Directorates-General, which will consult both the team in the Legal Service dealing with the particular subject matter of the proposal and the Codification Group.
An example of a recast is Directive 2006/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions (recast).
