The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union

This paper analyses the new 'early warning system' proposed by the Convention to involve national parliaments in the European decision-making process. It argues that this is unsatisfactory and that national parliaments should be given the right to bring cases before the European Court of Justice when they believe that a piece of proposed European legislation infringes the principle of subsidiarity. In addition, national parliaments should be encouraged to make more use of their powers to scrutinise their national governments in the contributions they make to legislative procedure.