National parliaments need to be more involved in creating European legislation: EU official

European Commissioner First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said here Monday that national parliaments needed to become more involved in preparing European legislation and to support Brussels's efforts to audit its current legal regulations.

Timmermans was speaking at the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union here.

The aim of the audit is to determine whether some of the legislation and legal regulations could be scrapped in order to reduce red tape.

"Parliaments would gain respect if they succeeded in limiting bureaucracy. We need to state clearly who's responsible for each piece of legislation," stressed Timmermans.

"Only when European institutions sufficiently mirror the reality that based on treaties, we're a union of nations and states. We will persuade people that the EU still has something to offer...We have to involve national parliaments in everything we do," added Timmermans.

He conceded that the EU project shouldn't be strengthened at the expense of national institutions and member states. Endit