Il Parlamento francese e la diversa interpretazione del controllo di sussidiarietà tra Assemblea Nazionale e Senato: il caso dello spazio di libertà, sicurezza e giustizia

The strengthening of the role of national Parliaments in the European Union had very peculiar repercussions on the French legal system, to the extent that some scholars identified the EU Treaties as the stepping-stone towards the Parliament’s “renaissance” (culminated with the 2008 constitutional reform) in the French constitutional system. The essay analyses the subsidiarity control mechanism under this perspective: in particular, the French system shows a dual divergence in the interpretation of the nature of the control itself. The well-known vertical divergence (between the Commission and member States) and a horizontal divergence. The author highlights that the National Assembly and the Senate seem to interpret the subsidiarity control mechanism in rather different ways, since the former appears to be usually aligned with the Government’s positions, while the latter appears significantly more critical and willing to utilize the subsidiarity control with a political aim, therefore extending its scrutiny also to aspects concerning the political choices made by the Commission in its legislative proposals. The current state of the French system is emblematic of the two opposite risks that are innate in the subsidiarity control mechanism when it is not adequately assimilated in the framework of the parliamentary dynamics between the Government and the Chambers, and may be foreshadowing (to some extent) the Italian scenario in the event that the current constitutional reform is confirmed by the forthcoming referendum, with a National Assembly merely supporting the Government’s positions (thus not exploiting the potential of the subsidiarity control in the parliamentary dynamics) and an almost “hyperactive” Senate, that utilizes the early warning system in a way that could be regarded as antigovernmental.