Rethinking the methods of dividing and exercising powers in the EU: Reforming subsidiarity and national parliaments

Article abstract:

The Nice and Laeken Declarations put at the top of the agenda of EU reform the attainment of a clearer delimitation of the EU powers. This project is taking place in the context of a system of competences which is problematic in various senses. One of the items falling within the mandate of the Convention on the future of Europe includes the reform of the principle of subsidiarity. The emerging proposals for the reform of subsidiarity are, however, more directed towards legitimacy deficits than towards tensions in the competence system. Indeed, parallel to the competences issue, the claim for a larger role for national parliaments in the EU has come to intersect with the competence dossier, and to a larger extent this claim has reconstructed subsidiarity procedures into an answer to legitimacy deficiencies in the EU.