National Parliaments in Subsidiarity Review: From Guardians to Partners

Abstract

Abstract With a clear emphasis on substantive political value that national legislatures are able to bring to the EU legislative process, this paper attempts to overcome skepticism about deepening national parliaments’ direct involvement in the decision-making process at the European level. The role of national parliaments in advancing their subsidiarity concerns within European law-making may be strengthened through a more intensive political dialogue with the Commission, when the former acts not just as the ‘guardians’ of the subsidiarity principle (in the framework of the existing yellow and orange card schemes) but also as active contributors to the law-making process encouraging the Commission to leverage the so-called green card procedure. Complemented by the yellow and orange card provisions, it forms a three-element subsidiarity review mechanism perfectly capable of dealing with subsidiarity concerns of national parliaments at various stages of the EU law-making process, thus transforming the chambers from wardens into partners working together with the Commission to reshape EU legislative proposals for the sake of better regulation.