Sittings · Document
Follow-up to the European Parliament non-legislative resolution on the implementation of the Treaty provisions on national Parliaments
Rapporteur: Paulo RANGEL (EPP / PT)
Reference number: 2023/2084 (INI) / A9-0429/2023 / P9_TA(2024)0023
Date of adoption of the resolution: 17 January 2024
Competent Parliamentary Committee: Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO)
Brief analysis/ assessment of the resolution and requests made in it:
The resolution encourages national Parliaments to fully exercise their European functions in order to directly influence and scrutinise the content of European policies, in particular via the monitoring of their national governments acting as members of the European Council, and, in cooperation with the European Parliament shape a stronger parliamentary dimension of the EU.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it contains the following suggestions:
strengthen the role of national Parliaments by ensuring transparency of the Council’s work, i.e. regarding the action and voting record of Member States, and by strengthened political dialogue between the European institutions and national Parliaments in a manner whereby also minority views from the national Parliaments can be expressed;
strengthen interaction with national Parliaments by empowering European political parties with a recast of the Regulation on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations;
reform national Parliaments’ subsidiarity scrutiny of draft EU laws. For this purpose, agree on ‘a common understanding of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality originally attached to the Amsterdam Treaty, the relevant case-law of the European Court of Justice and the Commission’s own practice’;
consider extending the eight-week period for the subsidiarity scrutiny in the framework of a future Treaty revision to a twelve-week period;
establish a ‘green card’ procedure, ‘whereby at least one third of national Parliaments can submit constructive proposals to the Commission or the European Parliament, once the latter has been granted a general direct right of initiative, with the aim of positively influencing the European debate’;
extend the right to be informed also to regional Parliaments with legislative powers;
establish a ‘European Week’ – an event, which may take place simultaneously in all national Parliaments, with involvement of Parliaments from candidate countries, and which should be attended by Commissioners, MEPs and Council presidency to discuss and explain the European agenda.
Response to requests and overview of actions taken, or intended to be taken, by the Commission:
In general
The Commission acknowledges the important contribution that national Parliaments can make to creating a European public sphere, as highlighted in the European Parliament’s resolution. For the Commission, the exchange with national Parliaments in building coalitions for positive change is very important, as President von der Leyen underlined in her contribution at the plenary meeting of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC), in Prague in 2022.
Paragraph 5
The Commission very much appreciates the active engagement of national Parliaments in the framework of the political dialogue with the Commission. It encourages national Parliaments to engage earlier in the process by participation in the Commissions consultations, providing forward-looking political input and using ‘own-initiative opinions’ to let the Commission know their views about future initiatives that they deem necessary.
Paragraph 10
The Commission has always defended that European political parties should play an important role in contributing to the debate on European public policy issues and in forming European political awareness, as set out in Article 10(4) of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU). A successful and timely revision of Regulation 1141/2014 would have been essential for European political parties to be able to fully play their role in the upcoming electoral campaign for the 2024 elections to the European Parliament, while also strengthening the transparency and legal certainty for all actors. The Commission deeply regrets that, despite the efforts deployed by all parties in the negotiation, the co-legislators could not overcome their diverging positions on fundamental aspects of the recast proposal to find an agreement ahead of the 2024 elections to the European Parliament.
Paragraph 11
The Commission currently participates regularly in various interparliamentary events, such as the 2024 European Parliamentary week, whose agenda featured several Commission members as speakers. The Commission is ready to continue this engagement and consider how it could adapt to new formats of interparliamentary events.
Paragraph 14
The Commission is committed to promoting a common understanding of subsidiarity and proportionality and appreciates the European Parliament’s encouragement to refer to the criteria originally attached to the Amsterdam Treaty as a basis for that common understanding.
Since 2015, the Commission’s better regulation policy includes already the assessment of subsidiarity and proportionality in policy making. The Commission explicitly sets out in the Explanatory Memoranda of its legislative proposals how its proposals conform to the subsidiarity and proportionality principles. Moreover, the Commission included in 2021 in its revised better regulation toolbox (see tool #5) a subsidiarity and proportionality assessment grid. This was a follow-up to the proposal by the 2018 report of the Task Force on Subsidiarity, Proportionality and ‘Doing less more efficiently’ to set up such a common assessment tool (a ‘grid’) to foster a common understanding and create a more effective application of these principles by all bodies and institutions in preparing new legislation. The subsidiarity grid is included, as a linked staff working document, with each legislative initiative accompanied by an impact assessment. The Commission would like to encourage the co-legislators and national Parliaments to use the subsidiarity grid for their assessment of a legislative proposal’s compliance with subsidiarity and proportionality and thus foster a common understanding of these principles.
In the Commission’s view, the usefulness of the subsidiarity scrutiny mechanism as described in Protocol No 2 to the Treaties cannot be deducted from the number of reasoned opinions, triggering a ‘yellow or an ‘orange’ card. The mere existence of the mechanism is an additional incentive for the Commission to perform a rigorous subsidiarity assessment early in the law-making process and to seek constant improvement in this regard. The Commission takes every single reasoned opinion seriously as an important source of information about the perception of its legislative proposals in the Member States and it replies in detail to all reasoned opinions.
Paragraph 15
To facilitate national Parliaments’ subsidiarity scrutiny, the Commission applies summer (the entire month of August) and winter (20 December - 10 January) exclusions from the calculation of the 8-weeks-deadline available for national Parliaments to express subsidiarity concerns.
Paragraph 17
The Commission would like to stress that already within the framework set by the Treaties and through the political dialogue with the Commission, national Parliaments have several possibilities to let the Commission know their views and provide forward-looking political input. National Parliaments can annually send their views about the content of the Commission’s annual work programme, and their own related priorities. They also have the possibility of sending their input through the ‘Have your say’ portal on legislative proposals and policies under preparation, as well as sending their suggestions to the ‘Fit for Future’ platform to simplify EU legislation and reduce related unnecessary costs. National Parliaments can also use ‘own-initiative opinions’ to tell the Commission about future initiatives that they deem necessary. In practice, the Commission sees more and more national Parliaments using these possibilities.
Paragraph 18
The Commission, in its contacts with regional Parliaments with legislative powers, does not pursue activities that would go beyond the Treaty setup or interfere in the constitutional relationship between the national and regional Parliaments in those Member States where regional Parliaments with legislative powers exist. However, the Commission continues to encourage regional Parliaments' early and proactive involvement in discussions on EU policy proposals and initiatives which have a particular relevance for the local and regional level, and it replies in substance to the contributions it receives from regional Parliaments in this context. This is fully in line with the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty. For example, in 2023 the Commission received 32 resolutions from regional Parliaments, concerning issues as various as the circular economy, human rights and the Conference on the Future of Europe. Some regional Parliaments also participate regularly in the Commission’s public consultations.
Paragraph 21
The Commission believes that the political dialogue with national Parliaments still bears great potential for addressing current and future challenges, and it stands ready to strengthen this dialogue through the established channels of communication and cooperation to facilitate national Parliaments’ input to and feedback on the Commission’s political and legislative initiatives.