House speaker: National parliaments should have bigger role in EU decision making

Bratislava, October 7 (MTI) – National parliaments should be given a bigger role in the European Union’s decision-making process, Hungarian House Speaker László Kövér said after an informal meeting of EU parliamentary speakers in Pozsony (Bratislava) on Friday.

The participants put forward several proposals aimed at expanding the monitoring role of national parliaments within the EU, Kövér told Hungarian media.

France, for example, proposed the formal introduction of a “green card” procedure under which national parliaments could join forces and propose new legislative initiatives to the European Commission, he said. France also suggested that the EU should extend deadlines given to parliaments to assess EU initiatives in terms of whether they fall under EU or member state competency.

“The reason why we have not been successful in assessing this in the past was because national parliaments were given a very tight, 8-week deadline to review… very complicated EU laws,” Kövér said.

On the topic of the crisis of confidence within the EU, Kövér said it would be “worth looking into” whether EU institutions follow their own rules or rules prescribed by others. He said one of the causes of the EU’s crisis of confidence was that while national parliaments can be held accountable by the EU, the heads of EU institutions have no accountability towards anyone. But this could be changed if national parliaments are given a bigger role, he insisted.

Photo: MTI/TASR/Vladimir Benko

Source: MTI