Roundtable with National parliaments on the revision of Framework decision 2002/475/JHA «Combatting terrorism»

The European Parliament has decided to work on this dossier in close cooperation with its national counterparts. Associating National Parliaments (NP) is indeed both coherent with the current evolution of the latter’s powers in the EU treaties and logical in view of the particular interest they show in matters concerning the area of freedom, security and justice. The Lisbon Treaty strengthens the role of National Parliaments in many ways. Following the letter and the spirit of the treaty, they have been recognised a new role of association to the European legislative process, especially by the instauration of a deepened «system of early warning».

President Barroso already launched in 2006 the «political dialogue with National Parliaments» and the European Commission has so far received 181 «general opinions», not limited to the subsidiarity check. These figures prove the NP’s willingness to be more involved in the EU decision-making process, particularly in the area of freedom, security and justice (one fifth of all the opinions), a domain which remains at the very heart of national competencies. This has been confirmed by the COSAC decision to verify the respect of the subsidiarity principle for the Framework Decision on combating terrorism. At the end of the eight weeks period foreseen by the Lisbon Treaty, 25 Chambers from 20 Member States submitted observations and/or recommendations, many of which tally with concerns evoked above.

During the round table Members of the EP and of the NP would then have the opportunity to exchange their views and to observe the current state of play of the proposal in the Council and in the European Parliament.

Documents : (link to background documents)

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities