Friday, March 14, 2014
Cabinet (Omni Shoreham)
This paper aims to analyze the repercussions and effects of the EWS on executive-legislative relations at subnational level. It examines the practice of reasoned opinions by subnational actors and detects clusters of subsidiarity interests. It shows that member state and regional characteristics such as state structure, the composition of the second chamber, and the resources supporting regional assemblies are relevant to explain the variance in the EWS engagement of EU regions. In addition, the policy area of the Commission proposal matters to understand why proposals gain the attention of several regions and others are addressed by one reasoned opinion only. Lastly, those comparatively fewer cases where subnational governments issue a reasoned opinion are always "in tandem", i.e. whenever they submit such an opinion, it is accompanied by a reasoned opinion of their respective regional parliament. A qualitative case study shows that the EWS adds a new (and presumably necessary) mechanism for regional assemblies to hold their executive into account but also reveals a growing shared legislative and executive interest to increase the distinct region's voice at EU level – with apparent effects on political accountability at regional level.
