In 2021, no European legislative initiative was the subject of more than three ‘reasoned opinions’ from national parliaments, as noted by the European Commission in its annual report on the application of the subsidiarity principle, published at the beginning of August.
According to the EU Treaty, a ‘yellow card’ is shown to the EU institution when a sufficient number of national parliaments contest a European legislative initiative on the grounds of subsidiarity. As each parliament holds two votes (or one vote per assembly in the case of a bicameral system), a threshold of 18 votes out of 54 must be reached to ask the Commission to reconsider.
In 2021, the most contested initiatives concerned various proposals in the ‘Fit for 55’ climate package (nine reasoned opinions), health initiatives (three reasoned opinions) and the Asylum and Migration Pact (two reasoned opinions). The nine reasoned opinions on the Fit for 55 package were issued by the Czech Senát, the Irish Houses of the Oireachtas, the Swedish Riksdag and the French Senate.
According to the Commission, the concerns expressed by national parliaments do not relate to a perceived concrete violation of the principle of subsidiarity, but rather to what they consider to be an insufficient justification of draft legislation, which does not allow them to assess its compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
See the 2021 report on subsidiarity: https://aeur.eu/f/2sg (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)