Legal Integration in the EU and its “National” Aspect

Abstract

In the article, the author studies issues related to the execution of supranational regulatory powers and protection of national interests in the EU. The purpose of the article is to assess the EU legislative process against the background of application of subsidiarity as a principle of protection of national legislative powers in the areas of non-exclusive competence of the EU. The author has used argumentative, empirical, logical and normative methods of research. At the same time, due to the insufficient legislation and inadequate judicial enforcement of the subsidiarity principle, the author mainly relies on the argumentative research method in her conclusions. Thus, the author justifies the statement that the subsidiarity control mechanism established by the Lisbon Treaty has not yet become an effective tool for national parliaments to play an important role in the EU legislative process. The subsidiarity principle expected to be applied through this mechanism works rather as a principle «for structuring the political discourse» on the EU legislative arena and does not really limit the legislative power of the EU. However, the current weakness of national parliaments in their dialogue with the EU Commission (as a main source of legislative initiatives at the European level) may be successfully counterbalanced by cooperation between national parliaments and their national governments whose members make up the EU Council — a supranational institution acting as a European legislator along with the European Parliament. The Monti II case demonstrated that Council members, while remaining politically accountable to their national parliaments, could successfully function as a “transmission belt” between the EU Commission and national parliaments in the subsidiarity control mechanism allowing parliaments to have a meaningful effect on the process of execution of EU legislative powers.