Subsidiarity vetting
Subsidiarity vetting
Since September 2006, the Commission has sent proposals for legislation to the national parliaments so that they can vet them for any breaches of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles.
The two Chambers of the Dutch Parliament have conducted a subsidiarity and proportionality test on the Commission’s proposal for a directive on criminal provisions to enforce intellectual property rights.
They concluded that the Commission should not have the power to propose specific criminal provisions, even though the European Court of Justice gave the EU similar powers in the field of the environment in a judgment of 13 September 2005 (C-176/03).
The Parliament of the Netherlands brought that to the Commission’s notice in a letter of 3 July 2006.
Note
Subsidiarity is translated in the Danish editions as nærhed (proximity).
