Dutch ‘subsidiarity review’ strikes a chord with UK euro critics

Many of the Dutch demands are just playing to the eurosceptic gallery:

• “Europe where necessary, national where possible”, is already in the EU treaties (the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality).

• "Where the European Court of Justice interprets EU law in a way that EU legislators had not provided for and/or did not intend, then this should be possible to address by amending the EU rules": This is perfectly possible already. Indeed, most EU legislation these days is about amending existing legislation, and there is nothing to stop this being done to adjust for the consequences of Court rulings (themselves only triggered when there is a dispute referred to the Court when parties disagree about what a text means)

• "Every EU intervention needs to be motivated by a clear legal basis in the EU Treaties". That is the case already.

• "EU legislation should focus on main points to achieve shared goals rather than to prescribe in detail how those goals should be achieved". That is exactly what EU 'directives' do: they lay down the goal to be achieved and leave it to Member States to adapt (if necessary) their national legislation or practices.

• "When there are widely shared objections to EU legislation, there should be a mechanism to stop the Commission taking any further initiative in that area...to stop new EU laws in areas where national governments don’t want them". Given that the Commission only proposes, while governments in the Council (with elected MEPs in the Parliament) decide, there is no way EU legislation can be adopted unless a very large majority of governments want it! The only exception is where governments have delegated technical implementing powers to the Commission, and even then, they have procedures to block the Commission. The adoption of legislation requires the support of a 'qualified majority', which is about 74% of the votes in the Council, and many sensitive matters require unanimity. So, nothing can be adopted anyway unless most governments want it, however much the Commission may want it.

• "Halting the further harmonisation of social security systems." There hasn't actually been much 'harmonisation'- rather the granting of reciprocal rights, but again, this can only happen if and when a very large majority of governments and of MEPs want it.

• "Limiting the EU budget" The budget IS already limited by a double lock: the EU's resources cannot exceed 1.24% of GDP/GNI and, within that, spending ceilings are laid down for each category of expenditure, by the Member States, acting unanimously in the Council. They cannot be raised unless everyone agrees.

•"A two-year freeze in salaries of EU officials". That is already ageeed in principle.