C 81/78
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
18.2.2022
Thursday 24 June 2021
Monetary Union (EMU) and the activation of passerelle clauses; observes that no proposals received more than four reasoned opinions; recalls that the Treaties provide a role for interparliamentary cooperation, giving national parliaments responsibility for examining legislative and non-legislative initiatives; welcomes the active participation of national parliaments in legislative dialogue with the EU institutions through other means than Subsidiarity Control Mechanism; recalls that the ‘orange card’ procedure has never been activated, and that the ‘yellow card’ procedure has been activated only three times, out of a total of 439 reasoned opinions and 5 513 opinions in the period 2007-2019; notes that the implementation of the right for national parliaments to scrutinise compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, on the basis of the so-called early warning system (EWS), has partially improved relations between the EU institutions and national parliaments; highlights the Commission’s commitment to providing, in future, for aggregated answers where at least four parliaments have issued reasoned opinions and to demonstrating flexibility over the Treaty-based eight-week deadline by which national parliaments must submit their reasoned opinions, by taking into account common holiday and recess periods; believes that the Conference on the Future of Europe will provide an excellent opportunity for citizens to communicate on the real impacts of legislation at national level and to make suggestions on how to achieve the better law-making goals, including on reassessing the subsidiarity process; recalls that transparency and public access are essential to the legislative process and also justify the involvement of national and regional parliaments, while conferring greater legitimacy and confidence in the democratic legislative process of the European Union; in this regard, welcomes the progress made by Parliament in disclosing the multi-column documents as a consequence of the De Capitani judgment;
14.
Notes that in 2016, of a total of 41 houses of national parliaments, 26 issued reasoned opinions, which fell to 19 in 2017 and 14 in 2018; stresses that this decrease goes hand in hand with a decrease in reasoned opinions overall;
15.
Underlines that the trend in the number of opinions and reasoned opinions in the period 2007-2019 demonstrates that national parliaments are increasingly asking for more political dialogue and a greater involvement in the debate on EU policies, and are therefore dedicating less time to the normative analysis of EU legislative proposals;
16.
Acknowledges the fact that 2019 was the first year since the introduction of the Subsidiarity Control Mechanism in which national parliaments did not submit any reasoned opinions, as a result of a sharp drop in the Commission’s legislative activities during the transitional year between two Commissions;
17.
Recalls that the Commission is obliged to consult as widely as possible with stakeholders prior to any legislative proposal, taking into account the regional and local dimension of the action envisaged;
18.
Recalls that the application of the ‘Think Small First’ principle enshrined in the Small Business Act is an essential element for the proportionality test, prior to any legislative proposal and should aim at ensuring that SMEs’ voices are heard and that their interests are taken on board as early as possible, in order to create a favourable business environment for the development of SMEs, which are the backbone of our European economy;
19.
Regrets the practice whereby ‘efficiency of the institution’s decision-making process’ is routinely invoked to refuse access to legislative preparatory documents, which risks that exceptions to public access to documents become the de facto rule;
20.
Welcomes the conclusion of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory Transparency Register for the EU institutions, including the Council;
21.
Emphasises that ex ante impact assessments together with stakeholder consultations are important tools in order to reach well-informed decisions and are a key instrument to ensure that subsidiarity and proportionality are respected and to promote accountability and efficiency; underlines the need to promote and encourage regular dialogue and proper and transparent consultation with all relevant stakeholders; welcomes the use of better law-making tools and cooperation with different relevant experts at EU level when drafting impact assessments; underlines the need to simplify these tools and make them easier to understand and use for stakeholders; underlines that there is an urgent need to improve impact assessments in general when it comes to subsidiarity and proportionality; stresses that all impact assessments, evaluations and fitness checks should involve an analysis of subsidiarity and proportionality; welcomes the use of instruments such as the regulatory fitness and performance programme (REFIT) and the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, which since 2017 have