The Institutional and Procedural Logic of the Early Warning System
THE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSIDIARITY: CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY AND EMPIRICAL REALITY, pp. 18-34, London: Routledge, 2012
18 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2012 Last revised: 31 Mar 2012
Date Written: March 26, 2012
Abstract
This excerpt from a monograph on the European Union’s early warning system for the principle of subsidiarity discusses a number of institutional and procedural features of the subsidiarity check as it is carried out by the national parliaments of the EU regarding draft EU legislation. The subjects covered in the excerpt are the inception and setup of the early warning system; the system’s scope, in the sense of which EU legislative procedures, which documents, and which principles are included or excluded; the system’s relation to the so-called Barroso initiative or political dialogue; the system’s negative setup as an opportunity to voice objections rather than support for draft legislation; the freedom for national parliaments to decide on the way in which they adopt opinions; the thresholds and consequences of the yellow and orange cards and the relationship between them; and the issue of partial branches of subsidiarity by a draft legislative act. Other institutional and procedural details, an empirical analysis of the use by national parliaments of subsidiarity review as well as several conceptual approaches to the early warning system are included in the book’s print edition.
Keywords: National parliaments, European Union, Subsidiarity
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation