Brussels, 14/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's political dialogue with national parliaments went from strength to strength in 2010. After the Lisbon Treaty came into force at the end of 2009, the role of national parliaments was considerably strengthened, for example, through the subsidiarity control mechanism, one of the most important of the new rights allotted to national parliaments by Article 12 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The 2010 annual report on relations between the European Commission and the national parliaments, adopted on 10 June, reveals that “the role of national parliaments on the European inter-institutional scene is growing”.
Commission Vice-President with responsibility for Inter-institutional Relations and Administration Maros Šefèoviè said that the number of national parliament opinions sent to the European Commission had substantially increased since the new Treaty came into force. “This is a clear and very positive sign: national parliaments want to become more involved in European affairs, and at a much earlier stage than before”, he stated. The Commission is fully committed to deepening its political dialogue with national parliaments and to further enhancing its contacts and exchanges with all 40 national parliamentary chambers in the 27 member states.
Political dialogue. The report illustrates how the political dialogue at the heart of the Commission's relations with national parliaments widened and deepened in 2010. Over the course of the year, national parliaments submitted 387 opinions on a wide variety of subjects, an increase of nearly 60%. “This clear upward trend has continued into 2011, with over 250 opinions received by the end of May 2011”, the report states. In the context of the political dialogue, the most commented upon in 2010 included those, which also elicited the highest numbers of reasoned opinions in the context of the subsidiarity control mechanism (see below). These were the seasonal workers directive and the directive on deposit guarantee schemes. Other initiatives on which national parliaments' opinions focused were, for instance, the Citizens' Initiative, the Green Paper on the European pensions system and EUROPE 2020. Economic governance was another key issue on which national parliaments' opinions focused in 2010, and equally in early 2011.
The policy fields which, in 2010, were subject to the majority of the opinions from national parliaments in the context of the political dialogue were justice and home affairs, internal market and services, and agriculture. Since the Lisbon Treaty came into force, national parliaments seem to pay more attention to legislative documents. The percentage of non-legislative documents, such as Communications, Green Papers or White Papers, has dropped to less than a third compared to a half in previous years.
The Commission explicitly invites national parliaments to express their views also on pre-legislative documents, and to participate actively in open consultations, as this is a particularly effective way for national parliaments to contribute constructively and positively to the shaping of future EU initiatives and legislation. The Commission reiterates its commitment to “take national parliaments' contributions received during the pre-legislative phase into account”.
New subsidiarity control mechanism. As part of the political dialogue, the full introduction of the subsidiarity control mechanism in 2010 has given national parliaments an important role in scrutinising compliance with this fundamental principle. The highest number of opinions alerting the Commission to a possible breach of the principle of subsidiarity was issued on the Seasonal Workers Directive (8 votes) and, more recently, on the proposal linked to the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (13 votes). While the Commission pays due attention to all such opinions, these numbers fall short of the threshold at which the Commission would be required to review its proposal (18 votes). [Each national parliament has two votes, shared out on the basis of the national parliamentary system. In the case of a bicameral parliamentary system, each of the two chambers shall have one vote. A draft legislative act must be reviewed when reasoned opinions cast by National Parliaments represent at least one third (18 votes) of all the votes allocated to them (54 votes). This threshold is a quarter (14 votes) in the case of a draft legislative act submitted on the basis of Article 76 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union on the area of freedom, security and justice.]
In 2010, the chambers that raised most subsidiarity concerns in 2010 were the Polish Senate (4), the Swedish Riksdag (3), the UK House of Commons (3), the French Senate (3) and the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies (3). The beginning of 2011 also shows that the two Polish chambers (Sejm and Senate) and the Luxembourg parliament continue to be particularly active in terms of issuing reasoned opinions with regard to compliance with the subsidiarity principle.
The Commission is also encouraged by the interest shown by national parliaments in the issue of economic governance and EUROPE 2020, in the context of the political dialogue. “National parliaments can contribute to ensuring that national measures are commensurate and consistent with the European commitments, and allow for delivering targets; they can encourage their own governments to be as ambitious as possible in setting up the national reform programmes; and they could use these programmes later on to monitor progress towards the targets, thus using them as a real tool for democratic involvement”, the Commission says in its report. It states that discussions and contacts between the Commission and national parliaments on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty with regard to the provisions on Europol and Eurojust will certainly be increased and intensified in 2011 and the following years. (L.C./transl.rt)