EN Official Journal of the European Union C 115/32

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on The role of regional parliaments with legislative powers in the democratic life of the Union

(2006/C 115/07)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the decision of its Bureau, on 15 June 2004, to ask its Commission for Constitutional Affairs and European Governance to draw up an own-initiative opinion on The role of regional parliaments in the democratic life of the Union;

having regard to the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and, more particularly, its provisions concerning the application of the principle of subsidiarity;

having regard to its opinion on The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (CdR 354/2003 fin (1));

having regard to its opinion of 13 October 2005 on The period of reflection: the structure, subjects and context for an assessment of the debate on the European Union (CdR 250/2005 fin);

having regard to the declaration of its Bureau of 26 October 2001 on The role of the regions with legislative powers in the Community decision-making process (CdR 191/2001 fin);

having regard to the 2003-2004 joint action plan of the Committee of the Regions and the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE);

having regard to the statements adopted on 27 and 28 October 2003 at Reggio di Calabria, on 26 October 2004 in Milan and on 24-25 October 2005 in Barcelona by the presidents of the European Regional Legislative Assemblies;

having regard to the Oviedo declaration establishing the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) in 1997 and laying down its objectives and principles;

having regard to the draft opinion (CdR 221/2004 rev. 3) adopted on 22 April 2005 by its Commission for Constitutional Affairs and European Governance (rapporteur: Mr Luc Van den Brande, BE-EPP, Senator, Belgian Parliament, member of the Flemish Parliament);

1) whereas in some Member States regions have legislative powers and are consequently empowered to apply European legislation;

2) whereas the specific competences of regions with legislative powers have been explicitly expanded by the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to include those relating to the process of monitoring and applying the subsidiarity principle, giving them a special role in the European Union's democratic decision-making process as a result;

3) whereas the limits of this opinion, which deals with the specific case of regional parliaments with legislative powers, are determined by the competences which have thus been devolved to these parliaments by the Constitutional Treaty; whereas this opinion therefore does not detract from recognition of the importance of other political levels of decision-making; and whereas this opinion's recommendations also apply mutatis mutandis to the other political levels of decision-making;

4) whereas the regional parliaments with legislative powers are fully responsible for executing their decisions and are expressly mentioned on this account in the protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality annexed to the Constitutional Treaty;

5) whereas the discussions at the hearing on The role of regional parliaments and regional assemblies with legislative powers in the democratic life of the Union held by the Commission for Constitutional Affairs and European Governance on 3 March 2005 confirmed the growing involvement of regional parliaments with legislative powers in the European unification process;

6) whereas the pause in the process of ratifying the Constitutional Treaty must on no account hold back the initiatives undertaken with a view to involving the regional parliaments more in the democratic life of the Union and to their participation in drafting Community legislation and in the implementation and monitoring thereof in line with the political consensus surrounding the Constitutional Treaty;

adopted the following opinion at its 62nd plenary session, held on 16 and 17 November 2005 (meeting of 16 November).

1. Views of the Committee of the Regions

The Committee of the Regions:

1.1 recommends the incorporation into the current Treaties of the protocol on subsidiarity and proportionality and the protocol on the role of national parliaments in the European Union, as these could substantially improve democracy and public involvement in the European Union's decision-making process;

1.2 thinks that regional democracy makes a fundamental contribution towards involving the citizen in policy and that it therefore deserves all necessary attention within the framework of the European Union; consequently, the contribution of elected regional and local assemblies towards bringing Europe closer to the citizen should be upgraded, in particular by involving these decentralised entities fully in decision-making;

1.3 feels that regional parliaments help to underpin European citizenship in terms of European cultural and linguistic diversity;

1.4 is convinced that the strengthening of local and regional autonomy in several Member States represents an important contribution towards building a Europe that is governed, inter alia, by the principles of democracy, proximity and decentralisation;

1.5 notes that all the Member States of the European Union have experienced major developments as regards decentralisation, in which the regions have become major political and economic players in the European arena;

1.6 points out that local and regional assemblies are an integral part of the way in which European countries give form to their democracy. The subnational political level should therefore be given its place in the European debate;

1.7 regrets that the intention to take into account the decentralised powers of regional parliaments with legislative powers, for which the Laeken Declaration had provided a positive boost, has not led to a direct right of appeal by the regions concerned in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe;

1.8 is pleased to have obtained the right to appeal to the Court of Justice concerning legislative acts which have to be referred to it under the Constitution, but at the same time, it regrets that regions with legislative powers are (still) not entitled to bring suit before the Court of Justice;

1.9 notes therefore that regional assemblies, and particularly those with legislative powers, will be able to call on the CoR, if necessary through national parliaments, to bring such a suit where appropriate;

1.10 supports the efforts of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) to get regional parliamentary authorities involved in the European decision-making process;

1.11 would like to stress once again that, in accordance with the recommendations of the White Paper on European Governance, all the levels of power responsible for the implementation of European legislation should be involved fully in its preparation and in the development of EU policy, and considers that this applies all the more to regional legislative assemblies given that they have to adopt regional laws applying European legal texts; it therefore supports their active participation in the pre-legislative consultation process and involvement through their representative associations in structured dialogue;

1.12 has noted the various proposals and initiatives to strengthen inter-parliamentary cooperation at European level, which, in its view, can encourage European integration;

1.13 feels, however, that there should be closer investigation of whether these suggestions are desirable and realistic and, above all, an assessment of whether they can boost the political impact of the regional assemblies;

1.14 stresses also that the EU's current period of reflection on the constitution should under no circumstances constitute a step away or a withdrawal from these objectives;

1.15 emphasises that the protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality annexed to the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which stipulates that, in the course of monitoring application of the subsidiarity principle, national parliaments will have to consult, where appropriate, regional parliaments with legislative powers, is a first and important step towards the effective recognition of these assemblies;

1.16 also notes that all regional assemblies depending on the powers assigned to them, are affected by mechanisms for applying and monitoring the subsidiarity and proportionality principles;

1.17 points out that the European Commission's proposals on European governance, as well as the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, undeniably confirm that the EU has adopted a system of multi-level governance. This requires the relationship between the different spheres of government to be based on a horizontal partnership and designed to ensure effective, integrated decision-making and that the distribution of powers between the various political levels must be clarified, in order to know who does what and at what level political responsibility lies;

1.18 points out that the participation of regional parliaments with legislative powers within the Committee of the Regions represents an added advantage, reflecting the great diversity of the territories within the EU, and thus enabling closer cooperation between the Committee of the Regions and the regional legislative assemblies, with the shared objectives of strengthening regional democracy in Europe and contributing more to the exercise of new responsibilities in this field, as provided for in the treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, and correctly applying the subsidiarity and proportionality principles, in coordination with regional executives;

1.19 sees the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe by regional parliaments with legislative powers as an important opportunity to clarify their role and place in the European integration process.

2. Recommendations of the Committee of the Regions

The Committee of the Regions:

2.1 would like regional parliaments, regional assemblies and local authorities, in line with the powers granted to them, to be actively involved at an institutional level and to participate fully in the European debate and decision-making process, while shouldering their responsibilities vis-à-vis the public, particularly in the context of the current period of reflection;

2.2 recommends, in this connection, that regional parliaments be involved in the parliamentary forums planned by the European Parliament as part of the period of reflection with a view to fostering the European dialogue in order to overcome the constitutional crisis;

2.3 recommends that local and regional authorities and especially regional parliaments with legislative powers are actually involved at the pre-legislative phase, in preliminary consultations on European legislation, and also recommends that they are consulted in the course of implementing the early warning system;

2.4 insists on regional parliaments being fully involved in the European Commission's Plan D, with regard to both Community initiatives and planned national debates, to discuss the future of Europe and the public's expectations;

2.5 intends to enter into more intensive collaboration and dialogue with regional parliaments with legislative powers with a view to optimising such involvement;

2.6 notes that it will carefully consider any requests stemming from its networking with regional and local authorities and their associations to bring actions about EU legislative acts under internal procedures to be established;

2.7 will endeavour to ensure that regional parliaments with legislative powers, in accordance with the powers exercised by the European Union, act as components of the parliamentary machinery in their country or as chambers of the national parliament, and can also turn to their national parliament in the course of lodging an appeal with the Court of Justice for violation of the subsidiarity principle;

2.8 requests regional parliaments with legislative powers and the regional assemblies to contribute to regular updates of the directory of terms of reference on The division of powers between the European Union, the Member States and regional and local authorities (CdR 104/2004) drafted by the CoR;

2.9 urges the regional parliaments with legislative powers to consider setting up parliamentary committees with responsibility for monitoring application of the subsidiarity principle. As a result, these would then be privileged negotiating partners in the above-mentioned networks;

2.10 argues that in Member States where powers are shared between the national and regional level a binding internal agreement should be concluded on the procedure envisaged by the early warning system for monitoring compliance with the subsidiarity principle, in order to ensure the clarity and transparency of this procedure, and proposes to draw up a list of these procedural agreements adopted in the Member States;

2.11 recommends that the subsidiarity monitoring process should be accompanied by an internal reform process within Member States, in line with existing constitutional structures, to consolidate the involvement of regional parliaments with legislative powers in the mechanisms envisaged by the protocol on the application and monitoring of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles;

2.12 recommends that regional parliaments with legislative powers should use them in the European decision-making process, on the basis not only of their institutional capacity but also that of their fiscal capacity;

2.13 finally, strongly urges the European Union to undertake to give teeth to the regional debate in Europe, which, whatever happens, has to take the form of collaboration between the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the local and regional authorities and especially the regional parliaments with legislative powers; this collaboration will need to show clearly that it offers added value for European democracy, and the conditions under which this collaboration takes place must be the subject of close consultations.

Brussels 16 November 2005. The President of the Committee of the Regions Peter STRAUB

(1) OJ C 71, 22.3.2005, p.1.