European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

EUROPE, FROM THE INSTITUTIONAL REFERENT THE PERSONAL REFERENT: ... 75As regards subsidiarity, much has been said. Article 3B, paragraph 2of the Maastricht Treaty sets forth the following:“In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, theCommunity shall take action, in accordance with the principle ofsubsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposedaction cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member State and cantherefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action,be better achieved by the Community.”Subsidiarity is the most real means by which to reach an agreementbetween uniformity and diversity present in the Union, as the HonorableLamberto Dini, Convention member, has accurately ascertained andwho has lamented the existence of a legislative void on the part of theconstitutive Treaties in terms of the instruments for determining who islegitimised to denounce the violation of said principle.A subsequent problem occurs due to the fact that in order to reachgreater integration, there necessarily exists the condition that there be areduction in the number of matters that require unanimity to give anadvantage to the majority vote. In such a context, one cannot help butconsidering that an Institution like the European Parliament, like allParliaments worthy of this name, needs an authentic legislative functionto cooperate with the Council in codecision-making procedures andwhich must be adopted as a rule in an overall redefinition and specificationof competences.The European citizen is asking for a greater participatory democracy,and therefore demands a democratic, not a technocratic, Europe, asthe President of the European Parliament, Dr. Pat Cox, has argued.Living as a european in Europe and in relation to a worldin transfomationThe worldwide Panorama characterized by the phenomenon of theglobalization of markets and by the displacement of work, facilitated byan increment in information technology, has made the subject of aworldwide Government even more topical and pressing. The Institutionsthat some decades ago served as interlocutors in the management ofcontroversies and as mitigators in the polarizing impulses of somepolitical blocks, are today at the point of being invalidated by thoseOrganizations set up where economic and financial power are imposedwithout impediments, often in ways that are not transparent.Numerous grass-roots drives representing the various voices oforganized civil society have been the protagonists in processes whose