Subsidiarity as a Principle of Governance in the European Union

Subsidiarity has been introduced at the 1991 Maastricht conference as a principle of European governance. This article traces its development over the past 15 years and attempts to assess the effect of the subsidiarity principle on European governance. The impact of subsidiarity varies across time and across issue area. This is related to the fact that the European Union is at the same time characterized by inter-state relations and relations typical of a ‘regular’ political system. This specific nature of the European polity requires us to analyze policy-making in terms of different policy arenas which are sometimes inter-state in nature and sometimes more ‘regular’. This concept of European policy-making differs from the approaches currently dominating the field: intergovernmentalism and multi-level governance. Although the effect of subsidiarity varies with the different natures of European policy arenas, the principle has tended to strengthen the position of the national governments of the Member States. This tendency has been continued in the operation of the Open Method of Coordination and the proposals regarding subsidiarity in the European Convention