Work of regional Italian parliaments improved by Committee of the Regions, Italian Senate is told

​The president of the Italian Conference of Regional Legislatures, Franco Iacop i, has urged Italian regional and local politicians to make greater use of an "early-warning system" created by the EU treaties in order to improve the quality of EU legislation, telling politicians gathered in the Italian Senate on 19 February that the system has already had "a definite positive impact on the examination of European legislation by Italian regional assemblies".

He argued that "all regional assemblies" should "without delay… invest energy, skills and resources" to "fully play the role constitutionally assigned to them in the European decision-making process".

Regional parliaments with legislative powers can highlight aspects of pending EU legislation that could have a detrimental impact on Europe's cities and regions through a platform created by the Committee of the Regions i (CoR), the EU's assembly for local and regional representatives.

Mr Iacop, who is a member of the CoR as well as head of the Italian Conference of Regional Legislatures, said that the "early-warning system" had led to more scrutiny of EU legislation by Italian authorities and closer collaboration between the CoR and the Italian Senate.

Mr Iacop was speaking at an event co-organised by the CoR to inform local and regional politicians and officials about monitoring of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which stipulate that decisions within the EU should be taken at the appropriate level closest to citizens and that the EU should not take more action than needed to achieve its objectives. This was the first time that the CoR had organised an awareness-raising and training seminar on these principles in a political assembly.

The CoR's efforts to help local and regional authorities monitor and improve EU legislation include the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network, through which 150 partners exchange information and views on EU initiatives, a 15-member Subsidiarity Expert Group, and a database - REGPEX - for regional parliaments and governments. Political leadership is provided by the five-member Subsidiarity Steering Group.

Speaking in Rome, Michael Schneider, state secretary in the Land of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany and chairman of the Subsidiarity Steering Group, described subsidiarity monitoring as "a constructive act" that "strengthens the democratic legitimacy of the European Union and helps to achieve better regulation and to increase public acceptance of decisions". He noted that since subsidiarity is about finding the appropriate level of decision-making, it is sometimes "good that the European level takes measures". Mr Schneider praised the overall direction of the European Commission's review, saying that "the current Commission in essence attaches great importance to the principle of subsidiarity".

He also emphasised that the CoR would like to reinforce its cooperation with national parliaments.

The meeting came against the backdrop of debate about political reforms in Italy that could reduce the legislative powers of the upper house of the Italian parliament and transform it into a senate comprised of local and regional politicians. Italy's local and regional governments are represented at the EU level through the CoR.

Mercedes Bresso i, a member of the European Parliament's constitutional-affairs committee and president of the CoR in 2010-12, said that local and regional authorities across Europe had yet to use the full potential offered them by the EU.

Other keynote speakers at the event included Vannino Chiti, chairman of the Italian Senate's European policies committee, Roberto Cocianchich, of the Sentate's European policies committee, Stefano Vaccari, member of the Senate environment committee, and Federico Toniato, deputy secretary-general of the Senate. Raffaele Cattaeneo, who is president of the Lombardy Regional Council, also represented the CoR, as chairman of the CoR's commission for territorial Cohesion Policy and the EU budget (COTER). He called for a stronger role of the local and regional level in the EU, also within its institutional framework.

Click here for more details about the event: "Subsidiarity monitoring, better regulation and political dialogue - prospects and challenges", Italian Senate, Rome, 19 February 2016.

More on the work of the Committee of the Regions to ensure respect for the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality can be found on our Subsidiarity portal.