Brussels, 07/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Region's (CoR) Committee on Constitutional Affairs and European Governance and the German Bundesrat are organising the first ever assizes on subsidiarity on 27 May in Berlin. The conference, the first of its kind organised by the CoR, will thus provide participants with the possibility of examining Convention proposals regarding mechanisms that govern the implementation and monitoring of the principle of subsidiarity. Participants will include: CoR President Peter Straub, Bundesrat Vice-President Wolfgang Böhmer, the first vice-president of the CoR constitutional affairs committee and member of the Greater London Assembly Lord Tope, Advocate General at the EC Court of Justice Francis Jacob and Antonio De Lecea, member of the cabinet of the President of the European Commission.
Work will be shared between three working sessions on: 1) arrangements for application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality in the pre-legislative phase: what are the expectations and the proposals of the CoR toward strengthening application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality during the development and proposal phase of a legislative act? 2) strengthening the provision for political control of subsidiarity in the ex-ante phase: what is at stake for the CoR in the early warning mechanism integrated into legislative procedure? 3) jurisdictional control of subsidiarity in the ex-post phase, potentialities and limits of the legal status for CoR: how to interpret and apprehend the scope of the legal status granted to CoR by the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe? Information: Dennis Abbott at CoR in Brussels. E-mail: dennis.abbott@cor.eu.int