Making Sense of Subsidiarity and the Early Warning Mechanism – A Constitutional Dialogue?

Summary, in English

The new European Commission took office on 1 November 2014, with a number of structural changes including the creation of a First Vice-President, a responsibility given to the former Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans. The First Vice-President will ensure that every Commission proposal respects the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. If the Commission pays more attention to the principle of subsidiarity and treats it more as a political commitment than a constitutional barrier, it is possible that the demand for strengthening the control of national parliaments in the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM) will dissipate. The new Commission’s high level of interest in the principle of subsidiarity also means that this is an excellent moment to evaluate the present mechanism and to present some ideas on how subsidiarity can better be observed in a more comprehensive system in which the ex ante control is considered in a broader political perspective and is seen as a more independent way of promoting the democratic legitimacy of Union legislation.

• Author: Jörgen Hettne
• Department/s: Department of Business Law; Lund University Centre for Business Law (Swedish abbr: ACLU)
• Publishing year: 2015
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: European policy analysis
• Links: http://www.sieps.se/sites/default/files/2014_9epa%20eng%20A4%20korr9.pdf
• Document type: Report
• Publisher: Swedish Institute of European Policy Studies
• Topic: Law
• Keywords: Subsidiarity; National parliaments; EU Law
• Status: Published
• Report number: 2014:9
• Research group: Lund University Centre for Business Law (Swedish abbr: ACLU)