The early warning system as check on compliance with the subsidiarity principal in the European Union and the regional parliaments: diagnosis and prognosis.

Authors

  • CRISTINA ARES CASTRO-CONDE

Keywords:

subsidiarity principle, early warning system, regional Parliaments, democratic legitimacy.

Abstract

The extension of the principle of subsidiarity to the European Union’s (EU) regional and local dimensions and, above all, the possibility of involving regional Parliaments in the functioning of the new early warning system were the main attainments of the territorial lobby within the period of debate on the future of Europe, which was opened by declaration number 23, annexed to the Treaty of Nice, and finished by the bargaining on the final text of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe or EU Constitutional Treaty at the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. The purpose of this article is twofold: following a detailed assessment of the early warning system’s design as it was established in the new Protocol on Subsidiarity annexed to the EU Constitutional Treaty, the article will describe the reactions to it of the Committee of the Regions, Spanish national and regional Parliaments and the CALRE. Afterwards, from a normative-prescriptive point of view, and regardless of whether the early warning system is a good mechanism to control the application of the principle of subsidiarity, some arguments will be given on its would-be positive effects on the EU’s democratic legitimacy.

Published

2008-03-24

Issue

Section

ARTICLES