WRITTEN QUESTION E-2830/99 by Nicholas Clegg (ELDR) to the Commission. Annual review of the implementation of the subsidiarity principle.
C 280 E/142 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 3. 10. 2000 (2000/C 280 E/153) WRITTEN QUESTION E-2830/99 by Nicholas Clegg (ELDR) to the Commission (18 January 2000) Subject: Annual review of the implementation of the subsidiarity principle As guardian of the Treaties, could the Commission provide a complete list of EU measures which have been eliminated or withdrawn as part of the Commissionís annual review of the implementation of the subsidiarity principle? Could the Commission describe how it intends to further improve the application of the subsidiarity principle in its work? Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission (22 February 2000) As the Commissionís annual report to the Council on Better Lawmaking indicates (1), the Commission each year withdraws the proposals which have become obsolete, including for reasons of subsidiarity (in 1999 it withdrew 90 proposals). It proposes the simplification of a number of existing Community rules, largely in application of the proportionality principle. Since the 1992 Edinburgh European Council, the Com- mission has presented some 60 simplification proposals, 30 of which have been adopted by the legislative authority. the protocol annexed to the EC Treaty. Specifically, The Commission is also striving to improve the application of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles by strict application of it proposes Community action only where this is necessary or more effective than action by the Member States; it uses alternatives to legislation and leaves scope for self-regulation, for example in the fields covered by the it proposes measures which leave as broad as possible a decision-making margin at social protocol; national level; it chooses as simple a form of action as possible; it is revising its system of evaluating the impact of proposals and strengthening the cost/benefit analysis of its initiatives; it has improved the arrangements for prior consultation of the parties concerned. (1) Better Lawmaking 1996í CSF(96) 7, Better Lawmaking 1997í COM(97) 626 final and Better Lawmaking 1998í, COM(98) 715 final and COM(1999) 526 final. (2000/C 280 E/154) WRITTEN QUESTION E-2831/99 by Eija-Riitta Korhola (PPE-DE) to the Commission Subject: Evaluations of the current research into climate change (18 January 2000) What evaluations have been undertaken by or for the European Commission of the current state of the art concerning research into climate change in Europe, in the United States of America, and in other countries? Answer given by Mr Busquin on behalf of the Commission (11 February 2000) The state-of-the-art of climate research on a global scale is evaluated on a periodic basis by the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) of the United Nations (UN), where a majority of Community project coordinators are directly involved. In addition, a major conference (European climate science conference) was held in Vienna, under the Austrian Presidency in October 1998 at the end of the Fourth framework programme for RTD (FP4) to review the achievements and assess the state-of-the-art of Community funded climate research. The proceedings of this conference have been recently published as a CD-Rom (available from the Research and Technological Development Directorate general ü see also Recent results of ECís climate researchí, Eds. Ghazi et al, the Research and Technological Development publication). Clearly, the European climate science community is playing a leading role in research on a worldwide basis. This fact was also confirmed by the reports of the Commissionís monitoring panel and the five year assessment panel. One of the improvements recommended is the streamlining of research towards policy objectives and is now being addressed in the Fifth framework programme (FP5)