Adaptation of the parliaments of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia to the Early Warning Mechanism on European legislation

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE FAKULTA SOCIÁLNÍCH VĚD Institut politologických studií Zuzana Holakovská Adaption of the parliaments of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia to the Early Warning Mechanism on European legislation Abstract Praha 2015 Abstract The Early warning mechanism (EWM) is considered to be one of the biggest contributions of the Lisbon Treaty to the democratisation of the European Union. This thesis provides empirical findings in the field of the usage of the EWM. In particular it focuses on the adaption of the Czech, Slovak, and Polish parliaments to the EWM and analyses whether the understanding of the principle of subsidiarity by the respective chambers influences their activity in the EWM. This thesis combines a broad range of data sources including: firstly, primary sources such as official documents, reasoned opinions available from relevant databases (IPEX) and a questionnaire filled out by the parliamentary staff; secondly, secondary sources such as previous research in the field, and lastly direct observations. This study concludes that subsidiarity control is understood by the national parliaments as a tool to defend their legislative prerogatives. Furthermore it suggests that the inclusion of references to the principle of proportionality in the reasoned opinions increases the..