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

safeguards and direct citizen participation
eu more recently (Sweden, Finland and also many of the countries
included in the enlargement of 2004) have taken steps (often anchored in
their constitutions) to address the domestic consequences and impact of
European co-operation. The same can, in general, be said for citizens’ safeguards.
eu law offers citizens both substantive and procedural rights and
remedies. However, the Dutch government does not always co-operate
fully in their realisation, as will become apparent in this chapter. Moreover,
the Constitutional Treaty stipulates that the eu Charter of Fundamental
Rights be declared binding, but on this point, too, the Dutch government
has thus far displayed little enthusiasm. Former Foreign Minister Ben Bot
even went so far as to recommend that the Charter be omitted from the
new draft treaty. 3
4.2.3 safeguards operating between the eu and national levels
Subsidiarity
The subsidiarity principle was originally laid down in Article 5 of the ec
Treaty, but has gained prominence since the Constitutional Treaty stipulation
that national parliaments should play a role in testing subsidiarity. In
order to prevent unnecessary centralisation, and to guarantee that decisions
are made as close to the affected citizens as possible, the eu, based
on the subsidiarity principle may only exercise the powers it shares with
the member states if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action
cannot be sufficiently realised at the national, regional or local levels.
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Despite the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, the Dutch Parliament
installed a Temporary Committee on Subsidiarity Testing in March 2006
(hereafter called the ‘Subsidiarity Committee’), which currently oversees
compliance with the subsidiarity principle by testing new eu policy
proposals. An interesting aside – especially from the perspective of this
report – is that civil society organisations are also involved in this process.
The Subsidiarity Committee offers a platform for national political debate
on European policy and proposed legislation in the (preparatory) phase
when the possibilities for adjusting proposed policy are still available.
This can put the image that the national system is being overrun by European
regulations into perspective and can open up the political debate to the
articulation of policy alternatives and options. The debate on the setting
of European policy would thus not be solely limited to the departments affected,
but would also be conducted by mps with a direct electoral mandate.
There are also a number of objections, however. In the first place, the
‘watchdog function’ of the Subsidiarity Committee, whose focus is primarily
on combating unwanted interference from Brussels, is strongly