national parliaments, EU, scrutiny
Role of national parliaments in EU discussed at informal interparliamentary meeting
16 January 2015
On Monday 19 January, the Chairman, Lord Boswell, attended an informal interparliamentary meeting in Brussels to discuss how national parliaments can have a more active role in the EU and how they scrutinise EU issues
- Report: The Role of National Parliaments in the EU
- Subsidiarity and the current 'yellow card' procedure
The event, co-hosted by the House of Lords and the Dutch Tweede Kamer in Brussels, brought together interested parliamentarians from 15 chambers across the EU to discuss concrete next steps for improving the role of national parliaments at EU-level. Topics of discussion included:
- A possible “green card”: a mechanism whereby national parliaments could work together to propose an EU initiative to the European Commission
- The Commission Work Programme: how national parliaments can better scrutinise this annual document
- The “reasoned opinion” procedure: possible ways to improve the current procedure for national parliaments to scrutinise EU initiatives on the basis of subsidiarity
These topics will next be discussed at the COSAC Chairs meeting, to be held in Riga on 1-2 February under the auspices of the parliamentary dimension of the Latvian Presidency of the EU.