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DRAFT REPORT (2025/2042(INI))

On the application of the Treaty provisions related to the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and the role of national parliaments in the EU legislative process

AFCO-PR-768159

Committee on Constitutional Affairs · Rapporteur: Marieke Ehlers

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This draft report assesses how the EU applies the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and the role of national parliaments. It calls for the Commission to show restraint, improve impact assessments, and engage earlier with national parliaments. It proposes new mechanisms such as a 'green card', a 'red card', and a 'subsidiarity court', and urges the CJEU to enforce subsidiarity more strictly.

Committee position. The rapporteur proposes a resolution that calls for stricter application of subsidiarity and proportionality, enhanced role for national parliaments, and reforms including new mechanisms like 'green card' and 'red card'.

Key points

  1. Reaffirms the fundamental importance of subsidiarity and proportionality for the EU's legal framework and for safeguarding Member State competences.
  2. Calls on the Commission to show restraint in shared competence areas, define legal bases thoroughly, and refrain from legislating in exclusive Member State competences unless requested.
  3. Demands thorough ex ante impact assessments for shared competence proposals, with quantified justification and comparative analysis, and prior validation by national parliaments before adoption.
  4. Urges the Commission to provide detailed justifications for EU intervention and greater transparency, and to improve responses to reasoned opinions from national parliaments.
  5. Welcomes informal coordination procedures and proposes a 'single subsidiarity hub' to collect opinions and contributions.
  6. Urges the Commission to invite input from national parliaments at an earlier stage, during consultations.
  7. Encourages national parliaments to enhance scrutiny and proposes a 'green card' with lower thresholds and extension of the deadline for reasoned opinions to twelve weeks.
  8. Proposes a 'red card' mechanism that would automatically withdraw a contested proposal if supported by a qualified majority of national parliaments.
  9. Calls on the Commission to launch an EU-wide investigation into why national parliaments rarely use scrutiny mechanisms.
  10. Expresses concern about the CJEU's reluctance to enforce subsidiarity and its broad interpretation of EU competences, and insists that the CJEU is bound by subsidiarity when interpreting shared competences.
  11. Calls for a clearer definition of subsidiarity and proportionality, creation of a 'subsidiarity court' in future Treaty revision, and a principle of self-restraint in policymaking.

Who is affected

  • The European Commission: must show restraint, improve impact assessments, engage earlier with national parliaments, and provide detailed justifications.
  • National parliaments: would gain new tools like 'green card' and 'red card', and more time to submit reasoned opinions.
  • The Court of Justice of the European Union: urged to enforce subsidiarity more strictly and consider Member State particularities.

Figures and deadlines

  • 577 subsidiarity checks and reasoned opinions, 3 803 contributions, three yellow cards and no orange cards since 2009.
  • 14 reasoned opinions submitted by parliaments in 11 Member States in the third yellow card procedure.
  • 55 % of Member States representing at least 65 % of the EU population for the 'red card' mechanism.
  • Extension of the current eight-week deadline for reasoned opinions to twelve weeks.

Legal basis: Article 5 TEU, Protocol No 1 and No 2 to the TEU and TFEU, Articles 2-6 and 15 TFEU.