National parliaments as guardians of subsidiarity： A feasible task or an utopist chimera？

Ensuring a better control and respect of the principle of subsidiarity is one of the most important and innovative goals of the Treaty of Lisbon. To achieve this goal, the Treaty introduces a mechanism which, apart from checking compliance of draft legislative acts with that principle, may eventually lead a draft act to be deleted from the legislative agenda of the European Union on grounds of violation of subsidiarity. Within this mechanism, a crucial role is attributed to the national parliaments of the member states. According to Article 12 of the TEU （the Treaty on the European Union） and the provisions of the Protocol to the Treaty of Lisbon on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, in case one third of national parliaments consider a draft act not respecting the principle of subsidiarity, the commission must review the draft. Additionally, for acts to be adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure, when the simple majority of national parliaments gives reasoned opinions on the non-compliance of a proposal with subsidiarity and the commission does not amend it, the council or the parliament may block any further discussions on that proposal, if they consider it to be in violation of the principle of subsidiarity. While these provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon have the potential to ensure a better control of compliance with the principle of subsidiarity and enable national parliaments to have a stronger voice in the legislative process of the European Union, the present paper argues that several factors may considerably reduce their expected positive impact. This contribution concludes by proposing some suggestions to enhance the functioning of the subsidarity control mechanism introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon.