On 17 November the 7th Subsidiarity Conference took place in the Flemish Parliament. In the presence of European Commission Vice President Timmermans, the Luxembourg Minister of Labour Schmit as well as several MEPs,
Karl Vanlouwe, the EA Group member called for Member States to grant regional and subnational parliaments the possibility to participate in the subsidiarity monitoring procedure on equal footing of national parliaments like in Belgium.
"Our Constitution, added Mr Vanlouwe, clearly states that there is no hierarchy or subordination between the federal and the regional level. This idea is also incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty by means of Declaration 51 of the federal state of Belgium. National and regional parliaments are seen as equivalent, being part of the national parliamentary system."
Moreover, the EA member underlined the necessity to revise the current Early Warning System and the yellow card procedure. "There are structural problems with the current EWS, he continued, it looks like the deadlines were set not to be made, the yellow and orange card systems are hardly workable, and therefore it could be interesting to explore systems like green or red cards to enable subnational parliaments to actively take part in the EU decision making process"
