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Democratic Implications of the Treaty of Lisbon
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The Commission is now obliged to forward all draft legislative acts
to national parliaments, which have eight weeks, instead of six as
under the Nice Treaty, to scrutinize EU proposals before they are
put on the Council agenda. The Treaty of Lisbon provides national
parliaments with an early warning system: If one third of the votes
allocated to national parliaments (each national parliament has two
votes) are cast in objection to Commission proposals on the
grounds that it breaches the principle of subsidiarity, the
Commission must review the draft legislation (this is the so-called
yellow card). If a majority of votes allocated to national
parliaments are cast against a proposal under the ordinary
legislative procedure, the Commission must review the draft
legislation. If the Commission chooses to maintain the proposal, it
has to provide a reasoned opinion justifying the decision. On the
basis of this reasoned opinion and that of the national parliaments,
the European legislator (by a majority of 55% of the members of
the Council or a majority of the votes cast in the European
Parliament) shall decide whether to block the Commission
proposal (the so-called orange card) (Art. 5.2 & Art. 12, TEU;
Protocol on the Role of National Parliaments in the EU; Protocol
on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and
Proportionality).
Kiiver describes the enhancement of the role of national
parliaments as the “sugary coating around a bitter pill.” The pill is
“the European integration process itself.” The bitter taste is
“domestic decision-making autonomy draining away in the course
of supranational processes.” Turning national parliaments from
marginal, passive institutions into active players reminds us of “the
sweetness of the days when laws were made by the people for the
people, in an elected and recognizable deliberative forum, and in
the cozy context of the democratic nation-state” (Kiiver, 2008: 77).
From this perspective, the effects of reforms contained in the
Treaty of Lisbon are merely symbolic.
First, not only are yellow card and orange card only
ex ante
,