Brussels, 14/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - Of the 83 opinions delivered by national parliaments on Commission legislative proposals between September 2006 and April 2007, 15 related to the Rome III draft regulation on procedures for divorce (see EUROPE 9410) and 14 to the draft directive on postal services (see related article). This information comes from the Commission's 2006 report on relations with national parliaments.
On the “divorce proposal”, 13 national parliament opinions were generally positive, while the Dutch and Czech parliaments opposed the regulation for reasons related to the principle of subsidiarity, the report says. On postal services, the French, Belgian and Luxemburg parliaments and the German Bundesrat expressed reservations over arrangements on the date for liberalisation of these services - 2009 according to the Commission proposal - and to the method of funding the universal postal service in a wholly competitive environment.
Since September 2006, the Commission has been sending national parliaments all its new legislative proposals and also non-legislative and consultation documents, as it said it would in its communication on the “Europe of Results” last May (see EUROPE 9189). It also set up a new internal procedure to follow up opinions sent to it in return by national parliaments. Hitherto, 22 national parliaments - mainly the upper chambers (the French, Belgian Czech and Dutch Senates, the UK House of Lords and the German Bundesrat) - have given 83 opinions on 44 Commission proposals. The French Senate holds the record with 30 opinions and it is the only one to have asked the Commission for specific further information, on four proposals.
Last year, European Commissions took part in over 100 meetings with national parliaments. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visited the French, Austrian, Belgian, Finnish, German, Slovenian, Slovakian and Danish parliaments. 2006 also saw the inauguration of the IPEX network for the exchange of information between parliaments and the European Union. (mb)