During the opening of the Week of Regions and Cities, on Monday 8 October, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, confirmed that the European Commission would state its position by mid-November on the report presented in July by the task force on subsidiarity and proportionality.
Speaking to a full house of elected representatives, local and regional players, Juncker stated that "it will be necessary, in a few weeks’ time at the meeting in Bregenz, Austria (Ed: conference on subsidiary on 15 and 16 November), for the European Commission to take a stance on the different elements of the report, and it will be up to the first vice-president, Frans Timmermans, to do this".
On the subject of the report from the task force on subsidiarity, the president said he was "largely in accord with the proposals of the Committee of the Regions office". He said that "the EU is the virtuous intersection between the local, regional, national and continental levels: of which one cannot work without the other".
The Commission’s announcements regarding subsidiarity are highly awaited by the regions. In answer to questions put to him by EUROPE that morning during a press conference, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the European Committee of the Regions, said he placed all his hopes on the Bregenz conference, and did not conceal a certain disappointment over Juncker’s speech on the state of the Union in September, when the theme of subsidiarity had been noticeable by its absence.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation process on the tools needed to improve European legislation. It will end on 23 October. Depending on the results of the consultation, there may be revision of the existing guidance on better regulation linked to recommendations from the task force, a source explains.
The latter indicates that the Commission is reflecting on how to improve impact assessments and the explanatory memorandum accompanying legal proposals and, in particular, the use of a "subsidiarity grid" referred to in the task force report. Furthermore, co-legislators have already committed to assess the impacts of their "substantial amendments" where this makes sense for a particular legislative procedure. Such assessments are also expected to assess subsidiarity and proportionality, EUROPE was told.
The task force proposes in its report to extend the time for so-called "yellow card" procedures, a "subsidiarity grid" for legislative acts, and to invite the regions to interinstitutional negotiations. Also, more broadly, it proposes the creation of "active subsidiarity" (see EUROPE 12059). The task force report may be consulted in full at: https://bit.ly/2B4BERz. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)