Scrutiny of the principle of subsidiarity in the V4 National Parliaments

The provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon, which deliver to the National Parliaments through the Protocol No 1 and 2, have brought the NPs closer to the EU institutions. It grants more power for NPs to directly access to the EU Legislative procedures. The cooperation between the EU institutions and National Parliaments became more active and visible than in the past. Regarding the V4-NPs, it should be remarked they have different approaches and procedures to scrutinize the EU legislative process. The cooperation and information exchange among the group on the matters of the EU affairs are still absent from their agenda. It demonstrates that some Chambers are not active enough to take account of the EU matters. It may due to its domestic issues or lacking motivation on the EU commission proposals. It is very outstanding in the case of Hungary because the Hungarian government’s attention in EU is more visible than National Assembly. It is hard for the National Assembly to control the government’s position in EU affairs, especially when the government is supreme. As a result, it creates a gap in the reasoned opinion submitting to the EU commission. This gap does not entirely depend on the mentioned matters, but it may relate to the number of the proposals from the EU Commission, the capacities of each V4-NP in examining the proposals, and time management. In another dimension, it should be noted that the EU Commission has paid more attention in producing its proposal or legislative acts in order to avoid the infringement with the principle of subsidiarity. Nonetheless, the V4-NPs should pay attention to the quality and detail of its reasoned opinions, the improvement of the procedures, time management, and capacity building. Significantly, they should frequently exchange information regarding the EU proposals that may affect the group as a whole in order to increase the number of the reasoned opinion, thus reducing the gap within the group. The Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in 2009, has introduced the “Early Warning Mechanism,” in which National Parliaments scrutinize the EU legislative acts regarding their compliance with the Principle of Subsidiarity. There is no exception for the V4 countries to implement this mechanism in order to involve in EU matters. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the EU and V4 countries in monitoring the Principle of Subsidiarity after the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in 2009. The main portion of this article attempts to identify the procedures, legal basis, and participants of V4 National Parliaments in the subsidiarity scrutiny. This article, therefore, reveals the different approaches of each national Parliament in tracking the EU legislative acts to ensure its subsidiarity compliance. Moreover, it summarizes the reasoned opinions of V4 National Parliaments that have been submitted to the EU institutions since 2009. With this empirical study, the study found that the most active countries are Poland and the Czech Republic, while Hungary and Slovakia are still left behind