Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

ediscovering europe in the netherlands
who are able to portray those outcomes in an appealing way, including to
the media (Pels 2007; Prast 2007; De Vreese 2007).
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A second way of mobilising national mps is through the activities of the
Temporary Joint Committee for Subsidiarity which was installed in the
spring of 2006 to conduct a parliamentary check on legislative proposals
from the European Commission on the observance of the principles of
subsidiarity and proportionality. 4 In principle, this Committee offers a
platform for political debates on the desired content and scope of European
policy. The principles of subsidiarity and proportionality can actually be
applied not only to technocratic but also to political interpretations (Van
Kersbergen and Verbeek 1994; 2004; Méndez-de Vigo 2002; Pelkmans
2005; Ederveen, Gelauff and Pelkmans 2006). In practice, however, the
first – highly technocratic – reports from the Joint Committee on
Subsidiarity appear to confirm yet again the traditional tendency in the
Netherlands to depoliticise eu policy in Parliament. Moreover, where
political opposition does become visible, the focus is primarily on the
opposition between eu policy and Dutch policy. While this may not in
itself be surprising, given the way that Dutch politicians have embraced
the subsidiarity principle, it may obstruct a broader political debate. All in
all, there is a clear danger that this Committee will just end as a technical
control mechanism, overseeing the work of the European Commission.
If that does happen, the potential contribution of the Committee to the
legitimisation of eu policy will be very limited, especially if there is a lack
of communication with the rest of Parliament and beyond (particularly the
media).
However this type of parliamentary committee does offer the possibility
for encouraging a national parliament as a whole to contribute to the legitimisation
of eu policy. The National Convention cites the example of the
British parliamentary ‘Scrutiny Committee’ in this regard. 5 The emphasis
in this Committee’s brief is to select (filter) those European initiatives (in
the broadest sense) that are relevant to the national parliamentary debate,
using both legal and political criteria. Instead of smothering political
debate at the very beginning with a technical or specialist approach, this
approach genuinely facilitates political debate. This allows the diversity of
political opinions on a specific issue to be voiced and thus reinforces legitimacy
through representation. Such parliamentary debates can also prompt
the government to become more accountable for its actions. Supplementing
the work routines of this Committee would be appropriate to the
strengthening of this accountability function by again using the British
example, by adding a ‘scrutiny reserve’. This would mean that Dutch
ministers in the Council of Ministers could only co-operate on the adop-