The Committee of the Regions and Subnational Representation to the European Union

The European Committee of the Regions as a watchdog of the principle of subsidiarity

“…This does not seem to be the case due to a variety factors, but particularly due to the lack of adequate institutional awareness of the role and potential of the CoR as an institutional body. 95 Focusing on the relationship between the CoR and the EU legislative institutions, and especially the conditions under which the members of the European Parliament and the Council become aware of the opinions of the CoR, Hönnige and Panke highlighted that, while the two institutions often receive mandatory opinions, it is not compulsory for the members of the European Parliament and the Council to read them. This not only confirms the lack of awareness about the advisory role of the CoR and its potential for the quality of the EU legislation, 96 but it also impacts negatively the principle of territorial proximity.…”

“…Furthermore, as Cole argues, the CoR is mostly used as a source of useful information rather than a legitimate representative body, as its opinions only concern those areas in which the representatives of the CoR have specific expertise. 107 A change in the CoR's operating procedures would perhaps increase the degree of informal involvement of its members in the creation of opinions when the Plenary Assembly of the CoR is granted the right to examine and discuss all proposed opinions before they are sent to a Commission. 108 Another possibility would be to increase the CoR's influence by expanding the number of areas in which the CoR is asked to adopt mandatory opinions.…”

Beyond mere ‘consultation’: Expanding the European Committee of the Regions’ role

“…Yet, at the same time this diverse structure has also provided scope for some of the CoR's activism in terms of expanding its own role and profile. As mentioned above, it is important to note that the Committee has been faced from its creation with two sets of rather different 'expectations' in terms of the role it could/ should play in European integration, both among its members and from the 'other' actors in the European process, notably Commission, Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the Council/ individual member states: on the one hand, the Commission was at least initially looking mainly for technical expertise and feedback on EU policies' impact 'on the ground', in particular with regard to regional/cohesion policy, whereas some in the European Parliament, and certainly many of the newly appointed members of the CoR, saw their role from the beginning as a more general political one, providing additional legitimacy to European integration and policy making by bringing in a different set of democratically legitimated stakeholders (Clement 1995;Cole 2005;Domorenok 2007).…”