From federated federalism to harmonized federalism: the case of EU subsidiarity scrutiny in Spain and Belgium

In political science literature, federal systems can be classified as ‘dual’ or ‘cooperative’ polities. Also for legal research, this classification has proven to be a good tool for analysis as evidenced by the recent work of Robert Schütze when he described the evolution of the EU from a dual to a cooperative system based on the development of its legislative activity. Under the influence of Europeanization EU Member States that are ‘classified’ as dual systems are said to develop more cooperative systems of government in order to meet the exigencies of participation in EU policy building and its implementation. This article ‘tests’ previous research in this matter by looking at the way the Lisbon Protocol on Subsidiarity (‘Protocol Nr. 2’) is implemented in two countries that can be said to be dual federal systems: Spain and Belgium. This article concludes that the previous research that revealed this ‘EU-induced’ cooperative trend in dual federal systems is not confirmed for Belgium and Spain when taking into regard the way these countries implement the Lisbon Protocol on Subsidiarity.