House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Mar 1993

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federal structure created, by and large, by the allies after the war has been at the root of German economic success ; the fact that its economy is not dominated by one part of the country has given Germany an enormous advantage over other, more centralised nations. In Spain, a unique form of devolution has taken place. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) pays only fleeting visits to our debates, because I am sure that he would agree with me about the Spanish devolution to the autonomous regions. Of course, the Minister of State is a great expert on Spain--not just the language--but some of the economic renaissance, under a socialist Government, took place at the same time as devolution to administrative regions. Spain is not merely preaching subsidiarity to the outside world, and enshrining vague phrases ; it is taking action on an internal basis, and trying to bring power and decision making closer to the people.

The constitutional changes currently taking place in Belgium are designed specifically to relate to internal tensions in that country, but also to enshrine the concept of decentralisation in a country with a much more successful economy than ours. The hon Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) is again absent for the second stage of this great debate. He was keen to attack Italy, but many of the problems facing the Italian republic derive from central domination of every part of the country's economy and society.

Decentralisation works, at both European and national level. Only this country sems to interpret its economic failure in this way, assuming that it need do nothing about subsidiarity at home while wandering around the continent preaching it as a European Community perspective.

Mr. Butterfill : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson : No ; I have given way already.

Mr. Butterfill : It is about my "brass neck".

Mr. Robertson : I am sure that the glow of satisfaction experienced by the hon. Gentleman after polishing his brass neck will comfort him as he waits to be called to speak in the debate.

My hon. Friends have asked whether subsidiarity is a definable legal concept, or a purely political one. There are mixed views about that. Madam Speaker's counsel, who gave evidence to the Select Committee on European Legislation, has a special form of dry wit, which is reflected in the documents that he submits to Committees and to which the Attorney-General should perhaps aspire. He tends--rightly--to stray beyond the strict legal brief, and to pass comment on the politics of European Community legislation. I think that we all gain considerably from his wise advice. In his evidence to the Select Committee, he said :

"Lawyers, whether they are individually pro-Community or anti-Community, are showing a quite unusual degree of unity in categorising subsidiarity as a principle of policy which is far too imprecise to have any clear legal effect."

Having said that from the lawyers' point of view, counsel went on :

"Non-lawyers are having to make the best they can of proposed Article 3b"--

as it then was--

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"and the best is to contend that the definition (or description) of subsidiarity in that Article will operate essentially as a political restraint on the Commission when proposing and the Council when considering draft legislation."

I think that those wise words should be taken on board, and I am sure that the Minister agrees with me. The European Community is a legal entity in one respect : it has a treaty base, a Court of Justice, laws, and--thanks to Baroness Thatcher--enforcement powers. Under the Maastricht treaty, it can impose huge levies on any recalcitrant nation state that chooses not to obey the European diktat. At the same time, it is made up of 12 independent, sovereign, self-confident nation states, which do not themselves agree that they are part of a rigid, centralising organisation, and which regularly assert themselves in order to prove that.

Over the years, that has been the nature of the Community. It would therefore appear that--despite the encyclopaedic detail that has emerged from the conclusions of the Edinburgh summit, which is as dense as anything that the Community has produced--it will continue to be a political concept, implemented by politicians. Let us hope, however, that those politicians will agree to the basic tenets of the philosophy that they are pursuing.

I was interested by the Minister's interpretation of subsidiarity in this quasi-legal context. On 13 January, in reply to a question from the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), he said :

"Subsidiarity means distinguishing those areas which are the responsibility of nation states from areas that may be the Commission's responsibility."-- [ Official Report, 13 January 1993 ; Vol. 216, c. 911.]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that, even in the context of what Conservative central office says, that is a remarkably restrictive view. I am not certain whether he had resigned at that point--whether, that is, he had been liberated from the constraint of reading from other people's bits of paper. We shall wait for the Foreign Secretary to enlighten us later.

I heartily commend the Library's briefing document on further developments in subsidiarity. In its conclusions, it makes the following sensible point :

"As for the present, when the Commission submits proposals for legislation to the Council, these proposals are already accompanied by a justification for action in accordance with subsidiarity." That, then, will be the test. The Commission will have to explain every piece of legislation in the light of the developing concept of subsidiarity.

Mr. Denzil Davies : My hon. Friend has studied the matter far more than I have. He mentioned the Commission. He will have noticed that article 3b does not mention the Commission ; it talks about the Community being subject to subsidiarity. Am I to take it that other Community institutions, as well as the Commission, are subject to subsidiarity rule?

Mr. Robertson : My right hon. Friend understands that, and I understand it. It must be at the base of all decision making. I crave forgiveness if I have concentrated too much on the Commission, which is usually regarded--often wrongly--as the most centralising of the Community institutions, and whose view, like the view that we take of what it will do in future, may therefore be more relevant at present. The concept of reducing the level of decision making to the level closest to the citizen-- the most

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appropriate level--must apply to every Community institution if it is to work at all, and in that regard I am entirely in accord with my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the concept of subsidiarity need not be confined to the European Community? Some of us find it hard to understand why the Government appear to attach so much importance to it in this context, while setting their face against an extra-Community forum involving the protection of human rights in Europe. Why do they refuse to allow fundamental rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the European convention on human rights, to be enforced in our domestic courts? That is the reverse of subsidiarity. The Government persistently seek to ensure that our citizens must take the long, expensive route to Strasbourg.

Mr. Robertson : That has been the thrust of my speech : the Government preach subsidiarity, but, at a domestic and EC level, they practise the opposite. I suppose that, after 14 years, we should hardly be surprised by that, but it is important that we do not allow the Tory party to get away with its propaganda that subsidiarity is a unique Tory achievement. It is nothing of the sort.

8 pm

The means of deciding subsidiarity is important. It is all very well to say that the Commission should have to pass a test for each piece of legislation that it proposes, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) said, the Council and Parliament must agree tests.

I was impressed by the evidence that Professor Helen Wallace gave to the Foreigh Affairs Select Committee earlier this year, in which she dealt with that point. I know that the Minister favours a committee of wise men to decide subsidiarity. We shared a platform on International Women's Day, from which he enunciated that concept ; it was as inappropriate then as it is today. Professor Wallace, who is the foremost authority on Community affairs in the United Kingdom, rightly says that the process must be more public than is being contemplated.

The Government hid all decision making in the far recesses of the government machine, but there must be a much more public process to define subsidiarity and what tests will be applied to the legislation. She said in her evidence :

"But there are some very important issues about the extent of detail of Community legislation, or the appropriateness of Community legislation, in those kinds of areas where one may have to rely much more on the normal legislative processes, plus whatever national parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms there may be, which clearly will have to be beefed up in all Member States, to try to sort out the ridiculous from the sensible."

From a non-parliamentarian, who I believe has some connection with politics in her spare time, that is one of the best definitions : "sorting out the ridiculous from the sensible."

Perhaps in this lengthy debate we might bear that in mind. Subsidiarity is a good concept and a valuable principle--but only if it works in practice. It is good for Europe and is a step forward for which the Labour party argued strongly and wanted even before the Conservative party discovered that it existed. It cannot be confined to a European ghetto--ideal for resolving Whitehall-Brussels

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disputes but seen against a centralist closed British system inside our country. Subsidiarity--the principle, as the Birmingham declaration said, of nearness of decision making and decentralised decision taking--is right for Europe and essential for the United Kingdom.

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : Thank you, Dame Janet, for calling me so early in the debate. This is my first contribution to the debate on the Maastricht treaty. I hope that you will agree that variety adds interest ; it remains to be seen whether it adds wisdom.

It may help to explain where I stand and why I thought that it might be helpful to intervene. The Europhiles, if I may so call them, consider me unsound and the Eurphobes regard me as totally unreliable. That seems to me an ideal position from which to join the debate, as my central purpose is to warn both sides of the debate that subsidiarity does not help either cause. I must admit to having studied subsidiarity for a long time, academically outside the House and as a politician within it. It is invariably misunderstood or, more mischievously, deliberately misdefined. I conclude that subsidiarity is at best neutral and at worst downright dangerous. It is worth considering why subsidiarity has become an issue which so many people hold up as an answer to problems. It strikes me as yet another worthy attempt--I do not mean that disparagingly--to placate critics, who in this case are those who worry about the societal implications of the further development of an economic community. The trouble with the approach of trying to placate those at the margins is that it does not get one far. One is merely trying to smooth things over.

The Euro-visionaries, if I may call them that without being unkind, have a classic economic model that they are seeking to develop--I accept much of what they say--in the belief that it will make all our lives better. And so it may, but like all economic models it keeps colliding with social reality --in this case, a deep-seated sense of who we are. That is a very powerful concept. The typical response of enthusiasts when reality bumps into their model is to try to make the real world fit their model, in the mistaken belief that if they blur the edges of the model often enough, all will be well. History teaches us otherwise.

When people started to object to the impact of economic integration on their societal separation as nation states, the Euro-visionaries conjured up the concept of subsidiarity and said, "Here is a way of placating those people who are concerned."

There are two snags to that : first, no one can agree what subsidiarity means ; secondly, it is a means of papering over the cracks which keep appearing when we should be trying to fill the cracks and stop further cracks developing.

The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) referred to the Library research note. I did the same, but it seems that we have a difficulty agreeing what subsidiarity means. Page 16, rather nicely, says :

"There is a plethora of literature on subsidiarity with few common strands except that no-one yet knows exactly how it will be applied in the context of European Union."

That says it all. The document says that subsidiarity has a long history, starting, it suggests, with Aristotle, going on via Locke and Stuart Mill to Pope Pius XI.

Mr. Robertson : I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman's scepticism about Government policy extends to railway privatisation, but there is much literature about privatisation and much about railways. There is no clear

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idea, even inside Government, how on earth the privatisation of British Rail will fit in practice, but that does not seem to have deterred Transport Ministers from proceeding with that experiment.

Mr. Wilshire : I would love to beat the hon. Gentleman about the head and tell him why rail privatisation is a splendid idea, but I have no doubt that you, Dame Janet, would rule me out of order, so the best that I can do is to stick with subsidiarity. The hon. Gentleman may then come to a different conclusion about my views on Government policy.

I was trying to say that the only thing on which we can agree is that there is no definition on which we can agree. Subsidiarity has a long history ; so does prostitution, but that does not make prostitution a particularly good idea.

Mr. Barnes : Is it not the case that different arguments can produce different attitudes about whether or not we are in favour of privatisation? However, subsidiarity is presented to us as something with which we must all agree, whatever we want from it. It sounds like something compelling, when in fact it ends up being meaningless because there is nothing specific about it--unlike privatisation.

Mr. Wilshire : I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would like to finish my speech, because that is precisely the direction in which I am heading. We do not agree on very much, but perhaps tonight, or at breakfast tomorrow, he will reflect on the fact that for once he has agreed with a Conservative Member. I recommend that he does it more often.

The hon. Gentleman rightly said that subsidiarity can be all things to all people, but if we are to pursue the concept of subsidiarity, we must understand it. There is no point in saying that we all have different definitions. We have to try to solve the problem to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Having been told that the Maastricht treaty was a good idea, I naively thought that I had better consult it. I thought that if anything could help, surely the treaty could. Article A, which has already been mentioned, states that decisions must be

"taken as closely as possible to the citizen."

That is a splendid idea, but unless that article means that all decisions will be taken by parish councils--which heaven forbid--it takes us no further forward in deciding who takes what decision where.

Article 3b deals with the justification for Community action. It states that the Community shall take action if

"action cannot sufficiently be achieved by Member States" or if it is

"better achieved by the Community."

They are statements of the obvious. They tell us that different things are best done at different levels, but that is all. We knew that before we started.

If one listens to the various definitions and reads the Library document, one theme emerges in all the attempts to define subsidiarity, however different the attempts may be. The common strand that lurks and which has been touched on already is that there is a sense of different levels of activity. We need to hang on to that idea and think about it to see whether we can use it to discover what subsidiarity really means.

The issue of the sense of levels keeps bobbing up in the debate, but no one usually speaks about it logically. It is

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an instinctive rather than a rational concept. The sense of different levels is deep inside each and every one of us, not merely in the mind of the occasional visionary or academic who will explain it to us. It is crucial that we try to understand what the deep sense of different levels inside us is ; if we can understand that, we can begin to understand what the debate is really about rather than what some people would like us to think it is about.

The instinctive sense inside us is a societal sense. It has nothing to do with economics. We have a sense of different levels out of a social rather than an economic view. We instinctively believe that this sense of different levels has something to do with organisation. In other words, we instinctively feel that it has something to do with government. More important, the sense of levels inside us is deeply territorial. Anyone who doubts that need only pop across to Bosnia and see what is happening in the name of controlling one's own territory.

Sir Russell Johnston : The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting speech. As he is talking about the territorial nature of subsidiarity, will he risk agreeing with me that the federal represents entrenched subsidiarity?

Mr. Wilshire : It might or it might not. It depends. If the hon. Gentleman asks me as an academic, he will get that type of answer. If he asks me as a politician, I shall later risk saying exactly what I think. However, if I am asked as an academic, I can only repeat my first answer. I ask the hon. Gentleman to be content with that and to wait. I understand what he means.

The sense of levels is highly territorial and we have to get to grips with the fact that it is also instinctively hierarchical. We instinctively understand that the different levels are stacked one on top of the other.

Mr. Wilkinson : My hon. Friend is making an interesting and thoughtful speech. I am fascinated--I am sure that the whole House is--by his definition of the epistemology of subsidiarity. However, on the subject of levels, is it not a fact that prima facie the Community will have competence in the areas set aside for Community action by the treaty itself and will have precedence over national parliaments in the pursuit of what the Community regards as Community objectives? Is it not a fact that the sole arbiter of the level at which decisions are to be taken will not be the supreme court of Parliament here at Westminster but the European Parliament in Brussels, over which we have no jurisdiction?

8.15 pm

Mr. Wilshire : My hon. Friend touches beautifully on the point which exercises the minds of people as they argue the issue. In return, I am trying to make the point that understanding subsidiarity will not add or detract from that point of view but will tell us merely that things should be done at different levels. The question is at which level is the very political issue that my hon. Friend highlighted. I am inclined to agree that there is a problem. I return to the question of what subsidiarity might arise from. In a phrase, I believe that we are debating how society instinctively organises itself.

Mr. Garel-Jones : My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), who is a distinguished classicist, used the word "epistemology". In my ignorance, I am unaware of the meaning of that word and

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wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who clearly understood it, could enlighten me.

Mr. Wilshire : I hoped that I had got away with that, but my right hon. Friend has now embarrassed me into saying that I ignored it because I did not know what my hon. Friend was talking about. Will my hon. Friend enlighten me?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Is it a new word?

Mr. Wilshire : It was a new word to me, but as to whether it was a new word for the English, Greek or Latin dictionaries, for the moment I pass. No doubt my mailbag will tell me that I am an ignoramus and put me right in due course. We have to focus not on such words but on the emotional problem of what society thinks that it is.

If we have a sense of hierarchy, with different things being done at different levels, we must decide what the levels are and what should be done at each level. The debate will then tend to focus on doing things at different levels and whether we have got the level right or wrong. Having thought the issue through at some length, I believe that society has seven levels and that we all belong to each of them. The debate on subsidiarity must then be about which of the seven levels particular things must be done at.

Hon. Members may wonder what on earth an academic discourse about different levels has to do with subsidiarity. The answer is that each level is discrete. For example, one of the levels is a household. One cannot have a household inside a household : there is either a household or there is not. Another of the levels is the nation state. By definition, one cannot have a nation state inside a nation state. If we are to discuss issues which bear on a distinct level of society called the nation state, we must understand it. If we try to redefine it, we are striking at the instinctive sense of how people think about themselves.

Another important aspect of the sense of levels is that, having worked through the way in which society structures itself instinctively, one quickly discovers that there is a distinct and different focus at each level.

A couple of examples will make my point. I sense that there is a level in the structure which is instinctively about the delivery of local services. We argue at length about what local government is, but all hon. Members would agree that we sensibly leave the emptying of rubbish bins to whichever level is responsible for local services. Similarly, if we want to resolve the problem of the hole in the ozone layer, there is only one level that can do that--the whole world. There is no point in the EC Commission trying to solve the problem of the hole in the ozone layer because the rest of the world has something to do with it.

In the structure of levels, there is very much a sense of doing things in the right place. What does that tell us about subsidiarity? If subsidiarity is used--the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) made this point well- -in the context in which we are discussing it, it is a political concept. Let us suppose that the Committee accepts my notion of a hierarchy of levels and accepts that each level has a distinct, separate and correct focus in the instinctive order of things.

If, through political expediency, we try to fudge the edges of the problem and to make the real world fit the

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model--and if as politicians we use a concept called subsidiarity to try to do things at the lowest level, to quote what many have said, when the lowest level is not the correct level according to the instinctive way in which society organises itself--we have a recipe for disaster. That is what concerns me about the whole concept. Within the concept of levels, by far the most powerful level is the nation state. There is no point in beating about the bush and we cannot alter that. The most deep-seated of all levels in society is the nation state. Anybody who does not believe me need only go to the nearest churchyard or war cemetery to discover that more people have been killed defending that sense of territory, which is what we are talking about, than for any other reason. The economic modellers of the EC might wish it otherwise--although I believe that that is why they started the EC in the first place--but the most powerful of all levels is that of the nation state.

As I said when I was trying to draw out my point about that sense, the feeling is deeply territorial. Whether we like it or not, we have within us a concept of the nation state. The definition and the distinctive focus of the nation state is, above all else, to defend its territory and to protect the edges of it. Anything--even an economic model for the best of purposes, described as the economic betterment of the whole of Europe--which nibbles at that sense of national sovereignty is bound to cause trouble.

I fear that subsidiarity is being used as a means of blurring the edges so that we can shuffle a few things about in the hope that the problem will go away. I do not mind if people want to try that. My message is simply that that sense will not go away. It can neither be legislated nor reasoned away. It is there and it is very powerful. I conclude at the end of this thought process that, although subsidiarity is an interesting subject and although it has a valid contribution, I fear that it offers no cure to my party if my party is using it as a way in which to prevent itself from tearing itself apart. Valid as the concept of subsidiarity is, all it does confirm that there is a hierarchy of levels, that different things happen at different levels, and that social harmony will be achieved only by doing the right thing at the right level. Subsidiarity will take us that far.

It is most important to understand what subsidiarity does not do. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), I point out that it does not help us to define the territories. If we agree on subsidiarity, on its definition and on this and that, we are still no further forward with the whole problem of the territories aspect of each level.

We can say that we must do things at the right level or at the best level, but subsidiarity does not help us one iota in defining what is to be done where. The concept is silent on that. What is best done by the nation state, for example, does not define a nation state's territory. We can have a long argument about whether the United Kingdom ceases to be the nation state, but we shall still have no sense of the territory. Subsidiarity is neutral on that. If subsidiarity is used by politicians to force the doing of particular things at a level lower than the optimum level at which the thing is sensibly done, in the way in which society organises itself, the concept of subsidiarity becomes downright dangerous.

Let us talk about subsidiarity by all means, but let us not be tempted to see it as a quick fix. If we see it as a quick fix, we do so at our peril. As was said earlier, subsidiarity

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is essentially a political concept. If it is used to try to redefine how society sees itself, and if we are really trying to redefine the role of society, we shall live to rue the day.

Dr. Godman : I too have difficulties with the concept of subsidiarity and with its application. With the treaty, we are experiencing the growing centralisation of decision making in the central institutions of the European Community. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), I cannot believe that even the most vigorous application of article 3b can arrest that continuing centralising process.

In its fourth report, the Select Committee on European Legislation said :

"The key question is whether the Maastricht treaty does or does not make the Community more centralist".

My argument is that the treaty encourages the process of centralisation. As such, it totally ignores the concept and process of federalism.

"The Oxford English Dictionary" defines "centralise" as follows : "1 to come together at a centre ; to form a centre ; to concentrate 2 to bring to a centre, locate in a centre, make central ; esp. to concentrate (administrative powers) in a single head or centre, instead of distributing them among local departments ; to subject to centralisation."

That is what the treaty will bring about. The same dictionary defines "federalise" as follows :

"To decentralise ; to take from the central authority and hand over to federal bodies in the state, or to federal states in a union." Hon. Members should give up the label of the "European Economic Community". We are talking about the European union. The treaty does nothing, even with the application of subsidiarity, to devolve power from the centre. No one can claim that with article 3b we shall move even surreptitiously along the path of federalisation of institutions and decision making.

In our earlier debate on the institutions of the Commission, of the Parliament and of the Council, we acknowledged that under the treaty there will be a shift in the distribution of power among those central institutions. The Minister of State has acknowledged that, as has the Secretary of State on a number of occasions.

The Select Committee on European Legislation also referred to the less than radical shift in the distribution of power among the central institutions. On page xxxiv of the fourth report, it states :

"The main changes lie, patently--in the changes in procedure discussed in relation to the Commission : the Council is the principal loser in that wherever the co-decision procedure applies the Council cannot (even by unanimity as under the co-operative procedure) force through a measure to which the European Parliament will not assent."

No one can deny that that is a shift in the power relations between those two institutions.

8.30 pm

The European Court of Justice is another central institution which must grow in power over the next few years. I appreciate that we will discuss the European Court of Justice under the group of amendments headed by amendment No. 32, but, there can be no genuine analysis of the concept of subsidiarity without passing reference to the European Court of Justice. As the concept of subsidiarity is in the treaty, it is potentially justiciable. The European Court of Justice must therefore be involved in determining what comes under the doctrine of subsidiarity.

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The European Court of Justice is already a supreme court vis-a-vis the 13 legal systems in the 12 member states. In that respect, the Scottish system has equal status with the English and Welsh system. The European Court of Justice has overturned legislation passed by this Parliament in recent years. In that respect, I refer to the Merchant Shipping Act 1988, which contained a provision that was unacceptable to that supreme court. The House of Commons had to shift ground, not the European Court of Justice.

The European Court of Justice is a powerful central institution. I submit that its power will grow over the next few years, particularly in terms of what is to be devolved to member states and what is to remain with the Commission. Although the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs may shake his head, I believe that I am right in saying that the Commission will be deeply reluctant to give up the areas of decision making that are now within its province or within the Community's province. I cannot see the Commission allowing that kind of devolution of decision making.

Before I go any further, I must state that I am perfectly willing to refer to those central institutions and to use them as tactical conveniences. Indeed, I suggested that to the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan- Smith), when he made a notable speech about the power of the European Court of Justice. In the near future, I hope to raise a case in the sheriff court in Greenock. I hope that the representatives of my constituent will be able to persuade the sheriff, by way of article 177, to refer the case to the European Court of Justice. That is an example of the power that that court possesses at the moment. That power must grow with the ratification of the treaty--if it is resuscitated by the Danes.

I will leave my analysis of the role of the European Court of Justice to our debate on amendments that we will presumably reach later this week, when I hope to catch your eye, Dame Janet. However, that court will play an important role in respect of article 3b. No matter how vigorously and determinedly this Government or successive Governments apply article 3b, I do not believe that article 3b will arrest the alarming process of centralisation that we are witnessing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) has already quoted from the Select Committee on European Legislation, the members of which stated :

"Unhappily a sharp division of opinion has now opened up between lawyers and others. Lawyers, whether they are individually pro-Community or anti- Community, are showing a quite unusual degree of unity in categorising subsidiarity as a principle of policy which is far too imprecise to have any clear legal effect."

If that is the case, the only arbiters will be the 13 judges who comprise that august body--the European Court of Justice. The arbiter will not be a Scottish court, the Court of Session in Edinburgh or a court south of the border. Having to determine such questions will give the European Court of Justice an increasingly politicised role in decision making within the Community. I am sure that that gives those judges no satisfaction whatsoever.

I am not a lawyer, and there are lawyers present in the Committee who may challenge what I am saying. However, as a layman, I must state that I genuinely believe that that supreme court will take those decisions and have sanctions to levy against recalcitrant member states. In terms of subsidiarity--this might be an advantageous implementation of subsidiarity- -the treaty elsewhere

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