On Thursday 1 February, the Committee of the Regions announced that it is considering appealing to the European Court of Justice over an announcement by the European Commission in December 2017 on strengthening governance of the eurozone, some of whose measures the CoR feels go against subsidiarity.
In early December the European Commission issued a series of proposals to improve eurozone governance (see EUROPE 11920), among which the European Commission launched a pilot scheme for 2018-2020 to take money from the performance reserve to pay the most efficient regions for the management of Structural and Investment Funds for structural reforms. The proposal immediately generated opposition from the Committee of the Regions, the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions and the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (see EUROPE 11923).
The Committee of the Regions has now moved on a stage and a resolution backed by five CoR political groupings (EPP, PES, ALDE, EA and ECR) clearly rejecting the Commission’s proposal was passed on Thursday 1 February. Their reasons for rejecting the Commission’s approach are that the Structural and Investment Funds are meant to reduce the gap between regions rather than supporting structural policies; - support for structural reform is under direct management, which rejects the idea of shared management, the latter going against the principle of multi-level governance; - the proposal would risk ‘discouraging’ the regions; - the plan would create legal uncertainty; - the timing is bad since the results of the pilot project couldn’t be used to feed reflection into the next Multiannual Financial Framework.
Summing up, the resolution clearly states that the CoR is prepared to go to the European Court of Justice under Article 8 of Protocol 2 on application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality annexed to the European treaties. This article gives the ECJ power to rule on appeals over an act of legislation violating the principle of subsidiarity, stipulating that such appeals may be made by the Committee of the Regions. A press release says that this would be the first such case in five years. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)