EU Affairs Committee to discuss Task Force report on EU policymaking reform

The meeting at 2 p.m. in Committee Room 1 can be viewed live here and on Android and Apple devices using the Houses of the Oireachtas app.

The July 2018 report by the European Commission Task Force on Subsidiarity, Proportionality and ‘Doing Less, More Efficiently’ made a series of recommendations to the European Commission on how to increase involvement of the EU’s 41 national parliaments, 74 regional legislatures and 80,000 local authorities in shaping EU legislation.

Wednesday’s scheduled witnesses are

• Dr. Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan, European politics lecturer in UCC’s Department of Government, and 
• Dr. Gavin Barrett, professor of European constitutional and economic law at UCD’s Sutherland School of Law. 

“Politicians with widely varying views can agree on one fundamental point: The EU needs to do more to connect with its citizens,” said Committee Chairman Michael Healy-Rae TD.

“People easily get lost in the meaning of `subsidiarity’ but it’s really quite simple. It’s about ensuring that policy decisions affecting our lives are taken at the closest practical point to our own communities,” said Deputy Healy-Rae. “This report deserves careful scrutiny as it seeks to address the disconnect that many people feel with Brussels and EU institutions and, where desirable, to shift decision-making and influence over policy and implementation back down the chain to national, regional and local levels.”