MEPs blast national parliaments' EU ambitions
Members of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee have strongly criticised plans by national parliaments to play a stronger role in preventing Brussels over-regulation.
MEPs meeting in the constitutional affairs committee on Tuesday (2 May) blasted national parliaments' deal, struck last autumn, to jointly scrutinise European Commission legislation potentially in breach of the principle of "subsidiarity".
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The subsidiarity principle, enshrined in the EU treaty, states that the EU shall only take action when it is more effective than action at member state level.
National parliaments' EU network, named COSAC, has singled out planned commission proposals on postal services and divorce matters as the first Brussels laws to be put under the national microscope later this year.
But MEPs attacked the move saying that according to present EU treaties, it is only up to the European Parliament to control the commission.
Andrew Duff, UK liberal MEP, said "We should encourage COSAC to focus on its true role -the scrutiny of national ministers for their performance in Brussels."
He added COSAC appears keen on becoming a "third legislative chamber" in the EU, next to the European Parliament and the council of ministers.
Trojan horse
Portuguese centre-right MEP Maria Esteves said subsidiarity is COSAC's "obsession", adding "we have to remind national parliaments what their role actually is, namely interaction with the council."
Austrian Green MEP Johannes Voggenhuber suggested national governments are behind COSAC's subsidiarity watchdog initiative, in a bid to undermine the powers of the European Parliament.
"These are intentional, systematic efforts by national governments to strengthen intergovernmental Europe," he said.
His French Green colleague Gerard Onesta even referred to COSAC as a "Trojan horse designed to undermine the whole system."
EU constitution
MEPs also accused national parliaments of effectively wanting to implement a single element of the EU constitution, which was rejected by French and Dutch voters last year.
COSAC's watchdog initiative resembles the "yellow card" procedure foreseen in the EU Constitution stating that the commission should review a legislative proposal, if at least one third of national parliaments believe the proposal falls outside EU competencies.
"We can't allow cherry-picking," said the constitutional affairs committee's chairman and German socialist MEP, Jo Leinen.
MEPs said the constitution represented a "package deal" granting more powers to both the European Parliament and national parliaments, which could not be broken up.
"The cost of not having a constitution is that national parliaments do not have a subsidiarity mechanism," said Spanish conservative MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo.
'Institutional ayatollahs'
National parliaments argue however that their watchdog plan is perfectly in accordance with provisions in the present EU treaty which defines COSAC's role.
A COSAC source decribed the MEPs in the constitutional affairs committee as "institutional ayatollahs."
"Most of them have never been national parliamentarians themselves and don't have a clue about what's going on in national parliaments," the contact said.
"We are not aspirant to become a legislative chamber, the hard core of our work is to exchange best practices."
The Irish centre-right MEP Brian Crowley also criticised his colleagues' "arrogance."
"We should not alienate ourselves from who should be our colleagues from the national parliaments."
The row is set to overshadow a high-profile joint conference by the European Parliament and its national counterparts on the future of Europe on Monday and Tuesday (8-9 May).
Tension between the European and national parliaments already came to a head during preparations for this conference in January, when the Austrian, German and Finnish parliaments indicated they did not want to work with MEPs towards a common position on the EU constitution.