![]() ![]() It’s not hard to agree that the Commission’s response to the parliaments’ concerns has to be fully adequate for the mechanism to be credible. Also, the Commission’s engagement with the national parliaments’ comments was deemed insufficient. Högenauer noted that of the three times the yellow card procedure was triggered, the Commission withdrew its proposal only once, and even in that case because it didn’t believe that the proposal would pass the legislative process, rather than because of national parliaments’ dissent. The counterargument to the former criticism is that a longer waiting period would further protract the EU lawmaking process, already notorious for its sluggishness. ![]() Another, an interesting one, is that the Commission doesn’t take the parliaments’ views seriously enough when the procedure is actually triggered, which discourages the parliaments. The period of time within which the parliaments must act is only eight weeks long, which is one criticism of the procedure. Some national parliaments, like the Swedish Riksdag, have been keen to flag proposals by issuing reasoned opinions, Högenauer said, but many seem to show little to no interest in the opportunity. Anna-Lena Högenauer of the University of Luxembourg discussed the reasons for this lack of enthusiasm in her guest lecture at the University of Edinburgh in February². ![]() Since its inception with the Lisbon Treaty, the yellow card procedure has only been used three times, and the orange card has never been flashed. If more than half of the parliaments flag the proposal, the result is the “orange card procedure”, where the Commission must justify to the European Parliament and the Council why the proposal doesn’t go against subsidiarity. The Commission must in that case review its proposal, and justify its decision to maintain, withdraw or change the proposal. Depending on the area of legislation, one third or one quarter of national parliaments¹ can trigger the “yellow card procedure” by flagging the proposal. If the Commission makes a proposal for an EU law on a matter which should be handled at the national level or lower, national parliaments have a defence. ![]()
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