Brussels, 22/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - The Dutch parliament wants to make sure that member states' national parliaments will be able to make effective use of the increased powers in scrutinising the subsidiarity and proportionality of European Commission legislative proposals conferred on them by the Lisbon Treaty. Two Dutch MPs - Luuk Blom from the ruling PvdA and Han ten Broeke of the opposition VVD - travelled to Brussels on Monday 21 April to argue for the COSAC (Conference of bodies concerned with Community affairs in the Parliaments of the European Community) to be strengthened. They believe that this body which has brought together national parliaments' European affairs committees and representatives of the European Parliament twice a year since 1989, must become the place where national parliaments adopt their stances on all Commission proposals. To this end, they say the COSAC would have to become more structured, to meet more often (at least every two months) and to have its administrative capacity reinforced. “It is only by creating good coordination between national parliaments that we can guarantee that their new powers of scrutiny on subsidiarity and proportionality, provided for by the Lisbon Treaty, will not be just empty words,” Blom and ten Broeke told press. At the next COSAC meeting, in Ljubljana on 7-8 May, they will invite their European colleagues to take up this call; they say that several parliaments (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and Sweden) have already indicated their support.
At the same time the two MPs believe they can resolve another long-standing problem: where the EP sits. They propose to hold COSAC meetings and all European summits in Strasbourg, with Brussels becoming the only seat of the European Parliament.
In its Protocol N° 2 on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the Lisbon Treaty provides for three ways of intervention by national parliaments in the wake of Commission legislative proposals (in the following calculation, every national parliament has two votes):
- within eight weeks from the date of transmission of the legislative proposal by the Commission, any national parliament may adopt a reasoned opinion setting out the reasons for believing that a proposal does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity; the EP, the Council and the Commission “shall take account” of these opinions;
- where the reasoned opinion is supported by at least one third of the votes allocated to national parliaments, i.e. 18 of the 54 votes as things currently stand, the proposal has to be reviewed by the Commission (“yellow card”); the Commission may then decide to maintain the proposal, amend it or withdraw it; this decision must be reasoned;
- if the opinion has the support of the majority of national parliaments (14 out of 27 member states or 28 votes out of 54 as things stand at present), the Commission may still decide either to maintain the proposal, amend it or withdraw it. If, however, the Commission decides to maintain it unchanged, it will be required to give its reasons in a reasoned opinion, which will then be sent to the Union legislator: the Council and the EP. The two institutions will then have to assess whether the proposal complies with the principle of subsidiarity. If, by a majority of 55% of the members of the Council or a majority of the votes cast in the European Parliament, the legislator is of the opinion that the proposal is not compatible with the principle of subsidiarity, the legislative proposal shall not be given further consideration. This mechanism, included in the Lisbon Treaty at the request of the Netherlands in particular, is called the “orange card”. (H.B.)