the role of national parliaments in verifying the compliance with the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity

The decision-making process of the European Union is a particularly complex one and its democratic legitimacy has almost always been a preoccupation for the citizens involved in European affairs, researchers, practitioners of Union law and, ultimately, political decision-makers. Today, after an evolutionary process that began, we could say, along with the Single European Act and, as the entire union construction, is still underway, this legitimacy is ensured in a multi-level organized system. One of these, alongside the European Parliament, is represented by national parliaments. This role is regulated in detail by the provisions of the Protocols No. 1 and 2. Practically, according to Protocol No. 1, the National Parliaments have the right to receive information about the content and the effects of the institutions issuing the draft normative acts. The obligation to transmit the documents that are necessary for the exercise of their control is a prerequisite for it, since no effective control can be exercised without knowing its exact subject. In Protocol No. 2, on the other hand, the concrete mechanismes of the National Parliaments‘ control over the compliance with the aforementioned principles are regulated, consisting in the issuing of reasoned opinions and, in extreme cases, in the action before the Court of Justice of the European Union.We will further discuss these matters in the present study.