Apathy undermines national parliaments' EU power
MARK BEUNDERMAN
05.11.2007 @ 17:37 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's national parliaments have a long way to go before they can act as a joint power bloc in Brussels, fresh European Commission figures show.
Data provided to EUobserver by commission officials suggest that national parliaments have to become much more active if they want to make use of provisions in the EU's new Reform Treaty, which gives national parliamentarians a greater say on new EU laws.
The Danish parliament is among the most active when it comes to scrutinizing the EU (Photo: EUobserver.com)
The treaty, agreed by EU leaders last month and meant to come into force in 2009, introduces a "yellow card" procedure which says the commission should review a legislative proposal, if at least one third of national parliaments believe the proposal falls outside EU competencies.
National parliaments also get the possibility to draw an "orange card" – if a majority of assemblies reject a commission proposal, and national governments or MEPs agree, the commission has to completely bin its plan.
But a closer look at national parliaments' recent interest in EU legislation shows that both the "yellow card" and the "orange card" thresholds will be difficult to reach.
The commission started to send draft legislation directly to national parliaments in September 2006, with commission president Jose Manuel Barroso in June that year explicitly inviting MPs to "react" to proposals from his commissioners.
From September 2006 the commission received a total of 142 reactions to its proposals, which generally means "only a hand full" of reactions per individual proposal, according to a commission official.
Thresholds not in sight
Only two proposals – on EU rules for cross-border divorce and the liberalization of postal services – sparked reactions from many parliaments at the same time, having been selected by the EU national parliaments' co-operation network COSAC for joint scrutiny.
The divorce and postal plans received 16 reactions each - sometimes from two different chambers of the same national parliament - but most reactions were positive.
In the case of the divorce proposal, only the Dutch and Czech parliaments reacted negatively, while the French, Belgian, Luxembourg and German parliaments expressed their "reserve on certain parts" of the postal scheme.
"The overwhelming majority of the reactions we've seen so far is positive," a commission official said.
"We are still very far from any threshold whatsoever," he stated referring to the yellow and orange card procedures. "There is a risk that something which looks good on paper, actually remains inactive."
Empty victory
National parliaments are checking draft EU laws against the so called "subsidiarity" principle - which states that the EU should only legislate if the problem cannot be solved at the national level - and the "proportionality" principle - which says the amount of Brussels legislation should not be excessive.
But breaches of the subsidiarity principle in particular are hard to prove for national MPs, officials said.
Jens-Peter Bonde, Danish MEP and veteran campaigner of national parliaments rights, says he is "sad" that national MPs are not more engaged. "For me it was a big personal victory to have the commission send proposals directly to national parliaments - but it now appears this victory is empty."
"National parliaments have been invited to influence EU-lawmaking but they don't respond to it. Perhaps because they don't win any votes with it," he added.
Sebastian Kurpas, an analyst at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), said that the "practical relevance" of the yellow and orange card schemes "will depend on national parliament's capacities to react in time and to jointly co-ordinate their action."
"It is now up to them to build up mechanisms that will allow them to do so -otherwise it will be very difficult to reach any threshold," he stated.
Dutch negativity
Most parliamentary opinions have so far come from the French Senate (36), the UK House of Lords (17), the German Senate (16), the Swedish parliament, (13), the Portuguese parliament (13) and the Danish parliament (12).
Some member states' legislatures - such as the Estonian parliament - have not sent any reactions to Brussels so far.
Meanwhile the Dutch parliament - which made a big point of having the "orange card" procedure introduced in the Reform Treaty - did not score particularly well with only four reactions.
Dutch MPs explained they are only reacting to commission proposals if they are found to be in breach of subsidiarity or proportionality - contrary to other national parliaments which also send in positive opinions to Brussels.
