“CMP”: this is an acronym that will be repeated often in the days to come. CMP for joint joint commission. If you have any memories of how the “parliamentary shuttle” works, this is what happens when, after one or more readings, the Senate and the Assembly have not voted on the same text. This is where the two chambers try to come to an agreement. And this is partly where the fate of the immigration bill, rejected by the National Assembly on Monday, will play out. In part, because even if the CMP reaches an agreement, it will still require a favorable vote from both chambers…
But how does the CMP work? Not easy, as this place is a black box with no real rules.
Who goes, and who decides who goes?
Deputies, senators, and that’s it. No one else, no advisors or collaborators. Seven incumbents on each side, corresponding to the political forces present. In the Assembly, that makes four Macronists, an RN, an LFI, an LR. In the Senate, there are three LRs, two PSs, one centrist, one Macronist. There are also seven substitutes on each side, to represent a few more groups, who participate in the debates but not in the votes. It is the groups which designate who goes there, but not randomly: we name the people who worked on the text, the rapporteurs of each chamber, the presidents of the committees concerned. And beyond, most often, the members of the committees concerned.
“It’s logical, they are the ones who know the subject best, who see the red lines and possible agreements. It’s going faster,” explains parliamentary journalist Pierre Januel, co-author with Vito Marinese of The Factory of the Law: a short manual for everyone, at Petits matins. There may be negotiations between groups, so that a substitute replaces an incumbent. This notably happened to Arthur Delaporte, PS deputy, co-rapporteur of a proposed law on influencers: he exchanged places with LFI during the CMP of his proposed law. It’s possible, but extremely rare.
The most important thing is the pre-CMP
“On CMPs, the law is very light. There are two paragraphs in article 45 of the Constitution and some regulatory articles. It’s practice, precedents, that make the rule,” explains Pierre Januel. “Normally, it should function like a commission but…obviously, that is not the case,” notes Philippe Quéré, author of 49.3, 47.1, 40 Counter-power in danger, at Max Milo, and socialist collaborator. As a result, in fact, the most important thing is not the CMP itself, but the “pre-CPM”. A negotiation reduced to its simplest, informal apparatus, most often with only the rapporteurs of the two chambers. Because at that point, it is already nothing more than a negotiation between the senatorial majority and the majority of the Assembly.
“It happens by telephone, by video, in person…” describes Arthur Delaporte. Very concretely, he asked that we work on a Word document with modification tracking, but it depends. “Everything depends above all on the will to conclude or not,” notes the Norman MP. Concerning the immigration bill, given that the CMP was convened on Monday at 5 p.m., negotiations must already be going well in advance: “There, it’s five days full of work, nights included. With super-mobilized administrators,” imagines Delaporte.
The CMP itself is all or nothing
It takes place, alternately, in the Senate and the Assembly. “We are really placed face to face, the seven titular deputies and the seven titular senators. Behind each incumbent, there is his substitute. But they are not even always there,” describes Hadrien Clouet, LFI deputy. Traditionally – but once again nothing is written – the presidents of the two committees concerned in the Senate and the Assembly make an introductory statement, then the rapporteurs of the two chambers. And finally, we go around the table of the groups who give their position.
At that point, we know very quickly whether there will be an agreement or not. Tradition dictates that if we begin the study article by article, we go to the end, therefore towards an agreement. On the contrary, if there is no agreement in sight, we do not even begin this study and we note the disagreement from the round table. “I have done CMPs that last hours and others that last four and a half minutes,” describes Hadrien Clouet. Here too, there is no rule on duration: if it has to take the night for an agreement, it will take the night… It is unlikely in the sense that if there is an agreement, it is tied up beforehand.
In this case, the parliamentarians present discovered on site a “three-column” document, a sort of prehistoric Google Doc, with the Assembly version in one column, the Senate version in the second, and the proposed version in the third. “It’s a document that is between 20 and 110 pages, and we must therefore form an opinion straight away! », remarks the LFI deputy who, from his position as an opposition deputy, never had the opportunity to really participate in the pre-CMP discussions. We vote on each rewrite… or not, it can be done consensually.
Does the CMP favor agreements?
For Philippe Quéré, “we favor the conditions of an agreement when formalism is reduced to its simplest expression”. Others have more frank expressions to describe it all as a “carpet trader’s negotiation”. That is to say, everything happens live. There are no more amendment deadlines (there are no more amendments anyway), simply rewriting proposals that can concern anything, even things that have not been discussed before. We can take the order, the disorder, return to something already rewritten… “Basically, it is a moment when the powers of deputies are disproportionate compared to usual parliamentary law. »
On average, 60% of joint committees are conclusive. It’s more since the start of the legislature, the government and the majority being only too happy to be able to find agreements with the Senate dominated by the right to try to rally the LRs of the Assembly… and therefore find a majority in the chamber low. Obviously, it is not as simple on the most complicated texts, like the immigration bill. In this case, it is possible that it is less a Senate/Assembly confrontation than a Right/Macronists confrontation. Which could make the search for an agreement more complex.