The President of the Committee of the Regions, Mercedes Bresso, has called on all regional and national governments to form a "coalition" with the CoR to defend the subsidiarity principle. This proposal comes after the Committee opinion about the possible breach of  subsidiarity principle which could arise from the Commission's proposal to impose sanctions on countries with excessive deficits.

President Bresso highlighted thet that the Commission's communication on economic governance published earlier July 2010, which has also been at the core of EU's strategy on economic governance debated by the Council in June, had sounded the alarm bells because one of the key sanctions proposed on member states with excessive deficits would be the suspension of funding linked to cohesion, agriculture or fisheries policies. The Committee points out if it is possible for the European Union to impose conditions on regional and local authorities reducing their freedom to adopt their own budget rules.

The Committee will not bring this issue on potential breach of subsidiarity principle to the Court of Justice immediately, but believes that such a recourse should only be taken as a last resort. The CoR will, nevertheless, highlight this issue in its opinion on the Commission's communication, which is due in the autumn.

Besides, the CoR's subsidiarity monitoring network, which includes a large number of regional and national parliaments, would assess whether a breach has occurred and stressed that the support from these coalition partners would lend significant weight to the Committee's case. President Bresso also called upon all regional parliaments to coordinate their efforts with the CoR and to join its subsidiarity monitoring network, as a complementary way to make their voice heard, in addition to the early warning mechanism outlined in the Treaty.

Commitee of the Regions defender os subsidiarity

The Lisbon Treaty effectively gave the CoR the role of the defender of subsidiarity, with the right to go directly to the European courts if it believes that a breach has occurred – a responsibility that President Bresso said she would not shirk. In her inaugural speech as president of the CoR, she said that the Lisbon Treaty would bring new life to the Committee: "We will no longer just ask that regional and local authorities are taken into consideration. We will not just be the yes-man. We will enter the political debate with substantial proposals and we will not – if it is required - shy away from political controversy."