§ Mr. TynanTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the use of Article 308 EC as a sole legal base for European Union measures, its implications for defining the areas of competence of the Union and its implications for the principle of subsidiarity. [147531]
§ Mr. MacShaneArticle 308 requires, in order for it to be used as a legal base for action, that a proposal be necessary for the attainment of a Community objective, and have unanimous support at the Council. We have given an undertaking that where the Commission puts forward a legislative proposal citing Article 308 as its legal base, we will provide the Scrutiny Committees with the Commission's justification of this choice of legal base. Any such proposal would need to respect the principle of subsidiarity set out in Article 5 TEC.