” “Enhancing subsidiarity ” “

“Juridical personality of the Union” and “subsidiarity” were the two main points on the agenda debated in Brussels on 3 and 4 October on the occasion of the 9th plenary session of the Convention on the future of Europe. The debate concentrated on the report of the “juridical personality of the Union” work group, chaired by Giuliano Amato, and on the conclusions of the “subsidiarity” work group chaired by the Spanish MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo. In the view of Giuliano Amato, “the Union must equip itself with its own juridical personality which should substitute and not be superimposed over that of the European Community (EC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The recognition of the EU’s own independent juridical personality will in fact make the Union a subject of international law, reinforcing its image and influence both at the international level and in the eyes of European citizens themselves”. As subject of international law, Amato continued, “the Union will be able to conclude international accords and become a member of international organizations”. Amato concluded by recommending the Convention to “formulate proposals to ensure that the future Treaty, in view of the EU’s autonomous juridical personality, put in place procedures to permit the Union to express itself with a single voice on the international scene”. On subsidiarity, Inigo Mendez de Vigo presented the conclusions of his work group based on three guiding principles: the greater consideration and application of the principle of subsidiarity by the Community institutions; the introduction of a mechanism of preventive control of political type by national parliaments; and the extension of recourse to the EU Court of Justice for possible violations in the application of the principle of subsidiarity. The proposal to invest the national parliaments with preventive political control to ensure that the principle of subsidiarity be respected was favourably received by the Convention. Cesare Mirabelli, former president of the Italian Constitutional Court, has also commented on the theme of subsidiarity. Writing in the last number of “Europe Infos”, monthly bulletin of the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community (COMECE) and of the Catholic Office of information and initiative for Europe (OCIPE), he writes: “The principle of subsidiarity, to which particular attention is being devoted with a view to the ‘vertical’ distribution of functions between the institutions, in particular between the Community and member States, has no less importance in the ‘horizontal’ dimension: to qualify the relation between the political institutions and society. If the principle of subsidiarity is proclaimed, it does not seem possible to limit it to a truncated enunciation of this principle, referred only to subsidiarity between institutions”. In the view of the jurist, moreover, “solidarity constitutes not only a value, but also a factor that has characterized the process of European integration. The affirmation of the principle of solidarity recalls a common relation and destiny”. Agenda of the European Union In the course of last week the following legislative acts and communications, among others, came into force: · Directive 2000/73/CE of the EP and of the Council, of 23/9/2002, that modifies directive 76/207/EEC of the Council relating to the implementation of the principle of parity of treatment between men and women as regards access to work, professional training and promotion and working conditions (OGEC L 269/15, 5/10/2002); · Directive of the European Central Bank, of 26/9/2002, on minimum norms of conduct applicable to the European Central Bank and the national central banks in the conduct of operations of monetary policy, operations on exchanges with the foreign currency reserves of the ECB and in the management of the currency reserves of the ECB (OGEC L 270/14, 8/10/2002).