An unlikely alliance

Date: 13/02/1997

OBSERVERS could be forgiven a wry smile at seeing Germany and the UK standing almost shoulder to shoulder in a campaign to set in stone the Union's commitment to subsidiarity.

The former is one of the EU's most advanced federal states and wants to ensure that Union initiatives take full account of the role and powers of its regional tier of government.

The latter is a unitary state par excellence which treats any notion of federalism as anathema. For the current British Conservative administration, the principle that the Union should only intervene in specific areas if this can be shown to be the most effective course of action is a strong defence for national governments against unwanted EU involvement.

But where London and Bonn now agree is on the need to anchor the principle firmly in legal language in a protocol to the revised version of the Maastricht Treaty which will emerge from the Intergovernmental Conference.

Subsidiarity is already enshrined in the existing treaty, but only in general terms in a slim article. The UK and Germany are not alone in arguing it should be buttressed by a detailed protocol based on the political text on subsidiarity tabled by British Prime Minister John Major and approved by EU leaders in December 1992 in Edinburgh, one year after the Maastricht Treaty was agreed.

This would provide a litmus test against which any proposals would have to be measured before being adopted by the European Commission.

More importantly, it would provide a strong platform from which any government could launch a legal challenge in the European Court of Justice if it believed the Union was overstepping the mark.

One specific target of the latest initiative is the Union's catch-all Article 235. Over the years, it has been widely used to promote pan-EU policies which have no specific legal justification elsewhere in the treaty.

While some critics maintain it has been overused, others believe it has now outlived its usefulness.

But neither group is likely to succeed in deleting it from the treaty. Instead, the first is concentrating on building new defences through the subsidiarity protocol, while the second is bent on ensuring that the door remains open for the Union to enter new policy areas by championing the concept of flexibility.

This combination would not prevent any rerun of political battles over issues such as the proposal to set up a European monitoring centre for racism and xenophobia under Article 235.

But it would establish a clear forum in which doubters could challenge controversial initiatives and provide a route down which those supporting the idea could go - a pragmatic solution for all concerned.