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

Abstract

In a resolution adopted on 1 February 2018, the European Committee of the Regions noted that a legislative proposal of the European Commission concerning a Regulation that changes the rules governing the EU regional funds for 2014-2020 did not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. Accordingly, the Committee considered challenging the legislative proposal before the Court of Justice if the proposal was formally agreed upon. Although at a later stage the European Commission decided to take into account the Committee’s argument and amended the proposal accordingly, such a context offers the chance to investigate more in detail the role of the Committee of the Regions in the legislative process of the EU and, more in particular, its role as a watchdog of the principle of subsidiarity. This paper aims to shed light on a rather neglected aspect of the EU constitutional practice, such as the potential of the Committee of the Regions to contribute to the legislative process, and answer the question of whether this Committee is the right body to guarantee compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.

Consultative Dimension in the European Union's Multilevel Governance Process: A Lever for Regulatory and Institutional Resilience

“…Established with the stated aim of supporting subsidiarity as a basic principle of European multilevel governance, the EESC and the CoR operate in a relatively shady cone in the European institutional landscape due to the nonbinding nature of their recommendations (Piattoni & Schönlau, 2015, p. 87), which has made many academic analyses concerned with assessing the real capacity of these institutions to contribute to the legislative process and to guarantee the principle of subsidiarity in the EU (Nicolosi & Mustert, 2020). But despite their limited legal power (Schakel, 2020), these institutions enjoy great legitimacy derived from the fact that their members come from the local and regional elected representatives who directly represent the citizens (Nicolosi & Mustert, 2020, p. 285).…”