Wednesday, July 08, 2015

A European Union first, with @BaronessRos at its heart...

One of the curiosities of the way the European Union works is the right of the national parliaments to stop, or slow, a proposal of the Commission if it is thought to violate the principle of subsidiarity. If one third of them raise an objection, a so-called 'yellow card', the commission is obliged to review the proposal. If more than half of them object, a so-called 'orange card', the Council or the Parliament can immediately vote the proposal down.

There has been talk of a red card, something that William Hague raised as Foreign Secretary, whereby a majority of national parliaments could veto a proposal, killing it stone dead, but there seems to be little enthusiasm for that beyond the Conservative Party. However, the next innovation has come from, perhaps, an unlikely quarter, the House of Lords European Union Select Committee.

The concept of a 'green card', whereby a group of national Parliaments propose that the European Commission take action on a specified issue, emerged from the report, "The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union", and, since then, there has been some discreet lobbying done by members of the Select Committee, chaired by Lord Boswell of Aynho, of other European Union scrutiny committees across Europe.


This culminated in a debate at the COSAC (Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union) plenary meeting in Riga at the beginning of last month, where a majority of speakers supported the idea of enhancing the political dialogue by introducing a "green card" and several agreed to launch a pilot project.


The pilot project is to be based on the House of Lords report on food waste, produced by Sub-Committee D of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee, chaired by none other than Ros, and a letter has been sent to the chairs of European Affairs Committees in the other national Parliaments in advance of the next COSAC meeting In Luxembourg this week, seeking their support or amendments.


If all goes well, a letter will then be sent to Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, urging the Commission to take into account a series of recommendations when drawing up the proposed circular economy package to replace the one withdrawn in February.


It will be interesting to see what happens, as the notion of national parliaments working in harmony with the European Commission is a fairly radical one which might lead to a rather better Europe...

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