What is the Joint Commission, which will decide on the follow-up to the immigration bill?

The final plea? The government decided on Tuesday on the future of its immigration bill, which was impaled on Monday by a rejection motion voted by 270 deputies in the National Assembly. Three possibilities were available to the executive: withdrawal of the text, a return to the Senate or the convening of a Joint Commission. And it is this last option that Emmanuel Macron favored to try to save the immigration law. How does the Joint Commission work?

7 deputies and 7 senators responsible for finding an agreement on a common text

When the versions of the text of a bill or proposed law differ between the National Assembly and the Senate, the Joint Joint Commission intervenes, at the request of the Prime Minister or, since 2008, of the presidents of the two assemblies jointly when This is a proposed law. Governed by article 45 of the Constitution and by the regulations of the National Assembly and the Senate, it is made up of seven deputies and seven senators, responsible for finding an agreement on a common text. Among the 14 parliamentarians, three have the Renaissance label, four are Republicans, and seven come from various political groups: Centrist Union, MoDem and Independents, Socialist, Ecologist and Republican, Rally of Democrats, Progressives and Independents, La France insoumise, National gathering.

The objective is therefore to find common ground between the two chambers to advance the parliamentary procedure. If there is agreement, the government then submits the final text to the deputies and then the senators for a vote. Once voted on by each chamber in the same terms, it is definitively adopted.

In the event of failure of the CMP, the text goes back for a new and final reading in the National Assembly then in the Senate. In the end, MPs will have the last word. But for this, the government must have an absolute majority, which is not the case today. The government therefore has every interest in the Joint Commission reaching an agreement, otherwise the executive will have no other choice but to use article 49.3 to force the final adoption of the text. Since 1959, three out of four Joint Commissions have reached an agreement. The latest concerns the pension reform adopted in 2023.

The final text should be adopted before January 31

In the current political context, the majority should come under the caudine forks of the Republicans to try to reach a common version. An agreement which should then be voted on in the Senate and the Assembly. The members of the Joint Commission will have 50 days to reach a common text, due to the government’s use of article 47.1 of the Constitution. “If Parliament has not decided within 50 days, the provisions of the project may be implemented by ordinance,” specifies the 1958 law.