subsidiarity

“When I was a child, the monarch of Liechtenstein told me: our duty is to protect people from power. If you have power, your first task is to limit the powers of the government, not to expand them.” Prince Michael of Liechtenstein said these words during a short visit to Lithuania. The guest, who was invited as a guest speaker to the 35th anniversary of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, came as a surprise to many.

The Polish Constitutional Tribunal has postponed at short notice the hearing scheduled for today on whether the Disciplinary Chamber of Poland\'s Supreme Court can continue to operate despite an interim order from the ECJ. The hearing was originally scheduled for April, but was postponed several times due to the initiative of the Polish Ombudsman\'s Office.

At the core of the principle of subsidiarity lies freedom of action of individuals, communities, municipalities, and other small entities which the central government can only intervene if the said entities fail to perform independently.

This paper is intended to elicit and substantiate criteria that should be used as a basis for the division of functions between the central government and local government (municipalities) according to the principle of subsidiarity.

Besides the problems Europe is facing when it comes to competitiveness and the welfare state, the most critical and dangerous one is that of cohesion, including social cohesion.

The type of institutional system of the EU in the community model should be corrected so that it reflects “ordinary” political systems in liberal-democratic states.