The Canary Islands Regional Assembly (Parlamento de Canarias) was established in 1983.
Competences (legislative and non-legislative), legal bases and policy areas where the regional parliament is active
Legislative: The legislative competences of the Regional Assembly include inter alia hunting, fishing, scientific research, culture, social assistance and tourism. Moreover, the Regional Assembly is competent for approving the regional budget. For further information, see Articles 30 and following of the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands, available here (ES).
Non-legislative: These competences include inter alia the control of the Governing Council and the appointment of two Senators representing the Region in the National Parliament. For further information, see the Statute of Autonomy (see link above).
List of committees/sub-committees or working groups in the regional parliament
The Regional Assembly includes Standing Committees inter alia on:
- Internal Affairs, Justice and Autonomy;
- Education and Universities;
- Budget, Economy and Finance;
- Tourism and New Technologies;
- Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and Water;
- Industry, Trade and Consumption;
- Public Works and Transport;
- Environment and Spatial Planning;
- Social Affairs, Housing, Culture and Sports;
- Health;
- Employment;
- European and External Affairs.
For further information, see
here (ES).
Committees in charge of scrutinising subsidiarity
N/A.
Staff in charge of subsidiarity scrutiny
N/A.
Subsidiarity check
Nature (selective/systematic): N/A.
Procedure: N/A.
Cooperation/coordination at the regional level
N/A.
Cooperation/coordination at the central level
EU draft legislation is forwarded by the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) to all Spanish regional parliaments. In turn, the latter may transfer resolutions on the infringement of the subsidiarity principle to the Spanish Parliament within four weeks. The legal basis is found in Act 8/1994 of 19 May 1994, as amended by Act 24/2009 of 22 December 2009, regulating the Joint Committee for European Affairs and bringing it in line with the Lisbon Treaty.
Cooperation/coordination at the cross-regional level
There is some cooperation through the Conference of Presidents of the Autonomous Parliaments of Spain (COPREPA), which provides a forum for the presidents of the regional assemblies to share experiences. In order to facilitate the subsidiarity monitoring by regional parliaments and the cross-regional cooperation in this field, the Parliaments of Aragon and Navarre have published a guide for drafting opinions in the context of the early warning system (GuÃa para la elaboración de los dictámenes autonómicos en el sistema de alerta temprana, available
here (ES)). This guide was presented and discussed at the March 2011 meeting of COPREPA.
Cooperation/coordination at the EU level
The Regional Assembly participates in CALRE (Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies).