According to the Commission's Annual Report on relations with National Parliaments, the European Commission's political dialogue with National Parliaments went from strength to strength in 2010. The political initiative was launched in 2006 by President Barroso and it intends to engage National Parliaments in European affairs more closely and constructively.

With the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the National Parliaments has a strengthen power in the European affairs. Thus, National Parliaments are using this opportunity to engage in European affairs more closely and constructively than ever.

To Maros Šefčovič, Vice President for Inter-institutional Relations and Administration, the European Commission is fully committed to deepening its political dialogue with National Parliaments and to further enhancing its contacts and exchanges with all 40 National Parliamentary Chambers in the 27 Member States. National Parliaments submitted 387 opinions in 2010 on a wide variety of subjects, an increase of nearly 60%.

Also it was adopted the Commission's report on subsidiarity and proportionality, which describes in detail how the Commission puts these fundamental principles into practice in its work. This is one of the mechanisms under the Lisbon Treaty for strengthening the responsabilities of National Parliaments in European affairs. Each national Parliament has two votes, shared out on the basis of the National Parliamentary system. In the case of a bicameral parliamentary system, each of the two chambers shall have one vote. A draft legislative act must be reviewed when reasoned opinions cast by National Parliaments represent at least one third (18 votes) of all the votes allocated to them (54 votes).

The highest number of opinions alerting the Commission to a possible breach of the principle of subsidiarity was issued on the Seasonal Workers Directive (8 votes) and, more recently, on the proposal linked to the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (13 votes). Whilst the Commission pays due attention to all such opinions, these numbers fall short of the threshold at which the Commission would be required to review its proposal (18 votes).