29/05/2018 (Agence Europe) – During a hearing at the Committee of the Regions on the work of the European task force on subsidiarity, regional elected officials from Saxony and the Austrian parliament called on Monday 28 May for the time given to national and regional parliaments to react to a European Commission proposal that infringes subsidiarity to be increased from 8 to 12 weeks. The vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, saw a contradiction between citizens on the one hand, who call for a more efficient Europe and the use by parliaments, on the other hand, of the ‘yellow card’ introduced by the mechanism. The use is more to express disagreement with the content of an initiative than to warn about an alleged infringement of the subsidiarity principle. The working group will submit a report to the European Commission in mid-July (see EUROPE 11969). (PH)