The PCED was established by Pope John Paul II's Motu Proprio 'Ecclesia Dei' in 1988.
The primary purpose of the PCED was to bring solace and care to those clergy who broke from the Society of St Pius X after the consecration of four priests as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on the 30th June 1988.
St John Paul II deemed this as an illicit and schismatic act and many SSPX clergy left as a result. Indeed, some of the clergy returning to Rome went on to found the Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP).
As a well as being concerned with the ongoing negotiation with the SSPX to regularise them canonically, the PCED has become the regulator in matters pertaining to the delivery and administration of the Extraordinary Form after Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gave them additional responsibilities following his Moto Proprio 'Summorum Pontifcum' on the 7 July 2007. On 8 July 2009 he made the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) the ex officio head of the Commission.
So if the rumour is true, it should not be a complete shock - effectively the PCED role will be absorbed into the CDF - one could say that the tradition is moving more mainstream by this move. The raison d'être for the establishing it in the first place has to some extent been satisfied. However, one cannot help but think that there is an ulterior motive for the move.
The news was broken by Vaticanist Marco Tosatti and a Google translate of the Italian into English is shown below:
It is a rather short legal text, in which it is said that since the pastoral emergency linked to the celebration of the Vetus Ordo, and which led to the creation of the Ecclesia Dei Commission thirty years ago, has come to an end, and as a result even the Commission in its current form no longer has any reason to exist.
We recall that the Motu Proprio of John Paul II, dated 2 July 1988, was born in reaction to the consecration of four bishops by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre. Some of his powers and functions were modified by Benedict XVI in 2009. The document of John Paul II gave the Commission the right to "grant to anyone who asks for it the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition in force in 1962, and this according to the rules already proposed by the commission of cardinals "established for this purpose" in December 1986 after having informed the diocesan bishop ".
The Commission was the point of arrival of those who appealed to it to obtain a revision of the denials opposed by the bishops at the celebration of the Mass according to the Vetus Ordo.
Moreover, following the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI (2007), the commission supervises the application of the Motu Proprio, studies the possible updates of which liturgical texts of 1962 come to need: for example the presence of new saints in the calendar. Moreover, the Commission was the last instance for the faithful who asked for the celebration of Mass according to the extraordinary form, and they did not have a positive answer either from their parish priest or from their bishop.
It is now necessary to see how many, and which of these powers, can continue to be carried out by what will be the new "Office" Ecclesia Dei within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and whose last referent, evidently, will no longer be the responsible secretary, as before, but the prefect at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The initial statement, according to which the pastoral emergency would have ended, gives rise to some doubts rather than legitimate. At the moment during the Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, voices of bishops and specialists are raised to deny legal validity to the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum" of Benedict XVI, and at the moment when there are bishops who are hindering directly or subtly the celebration of Mass according to the Vetus Ordo, to say that there is no pastoral emergency appears perhaps a bit risky.