Rule 174  : Order of voting on amendments

1.    Amendments shall have priority over the text to which they relate and shall be put to the vote before that text.

2.    If two or more mutually exclusive amendments have been tabled to the same part of a text, the amendment that departs furthest from the original text shall have priority and shall be put to the vote first. If it is adopted the other amendments shall be deemed rejected; if it is rejected, the amendment next in priority shall be put to the vote and similarly for each of the remaining amendments. Where there is doubt as to priority, the President shall decide. If all amendments are rejected, the original text shall be deemed adopted unless a separate vote has been requested within the specified deadline.

3.    The President may put the original text to the vote first, or put an amendment that is closer to the original text to the vote before the amendment that departs furthest from the original text.

If either of these secures a majority, all other amendments tabled to the same text shall fall.

4.    Exceptionally, on a proposal from the President, amendments tabled after the close of the debate may be put to the vote if they are compromise amendments, or if there are technical problems. The President shall obtain the agreement of Parliament to putting such amendments to the vote.

Under Rule 170(3), the President decides whether amendments are admissible. In the case of compromise amendments tabled after the close of a debate, under this paragraph, the President decides on their admissibility on a case-by-case basis, having regard to the compromise nature of the amendments.

The following general criteria for admissibility may be applied:

-    as a general rule, compromise amendments may not relate to parts of the text which have not been the subject of amendments prior to the deadline for tabling amendments;

-    as a general rule, compromise amendments may only be tabled by political groups, the Chairs or rapporteurs of the committees concerned or the authors of other amendments;

-    as a general rule, compromise amendments entail the withdrawal of other amendments to the same passage.

Only the President may propose that a compromise amendment be considered. In order for a compromise amendment to be put to the vote, the President must obtain the agreement of Parliament by asking whether there are any objections to such a vote being held. If an objection is raised, Parliament decides on the matter by a majority of the votes cast.

5.    Where the committee responsible has tabled a set of amendments to the text with which the report is concerned, the President shall put them to the vote collectively, unless a political group or at least 40 Members have requested separate votes or unless other amendments have been tabled.

6.    The President may put other amendments to the vote collectively where they are complementary. In such cases he shall follow the procedure laid down in paragraph 5. Authors of such amendments may propose such collective votes where their amendments are complementary.

7.    The President may decide, following the adoption or rejection of a particular amendment, that several other amendments of similar content or with similar objectives shall be put to the vote collectively. The President may seek the agreement of Parliament before doing so.

Such a set of amendments may relate to different parts of the original text.

8.    Where two or more identical amendments are tabled by different authors, they shall be put to the vote as one.