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

safeguards and direct citizen participation
than contributing to that legitimisation. The question in the context of this
chapter should therefore be to what extent safeguards can offer suitable
remedies. Therefore, safeguards are here defined as checks and balances
which enable national politicians and administrators to contribute to the
legitimisation of eu policy in the Netherlands.
Horizontal safeguards at the European level fall outside the scope of this
definition, since they do not contribute to improving the role of the
national administration and national politicians in the legitimisation of eu
policy in the Netherlands.
In the foregoing, the examples thus far used have mainly related to hard,
legally binding or even constitutionally embedded safeguards; however,
less mandatory safeguards, not necessarily anchored in the law, are also
relevant. The ‘red lines’ introduced by uk Prime Minister Tony Blair at the
time of the discussion on the European Convention provide a good example.
The subsidiarity principle, which only has political significance and
cannot be legally enforced, is another example of such a safeguard.
4.2.2 the netherlands and safeguards
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The Netherlands has an established tradition of emphasising safeguards at
the eu level. When it comes to institutional safeguards, the Dutch position
has traditionally been that European co-operation must be based on the
‘Community method’. This means that the Commission was assigned a
key role in initiating policy and that the European Court of Justice had an
independent role in applying and enforcing European law. For this reason,
the Netherlands was not a supporter of national veto rights and flexible
forms of co-operation, in which certain countries could opt out (or participate
only under certain conditions) of specific forms of European co-operation
(e.g., Denmark, the uk and Ireland in Justice and Home Affairs).
According to the Dutch view, these practices could jeopardise the substantive
safeguards in relation to the internal market. These safeguards remain
extremely important to the Netherlands. Safeguards are thus closely
related to specific views on European co-operation. If the eu is viewed as
a legal community, for example, the emphasis will be on safeguards for
parliamentary and judicial scrutiny. In the past, the combination of
substantive and institutional safeguards created a balance at the European
level which matched Dutch wishes and needs. As a result, little attention
was paid to other types of safeguards.
This has changed in recent years. In the first place, the substantive safeguards
of the eu in relation to the internal market have become more