What do the regional assemblies hope to gain from the new Protocol provisions?
191. The Protocol brings with it a renewed hope that the early warning mechanism will give local government and regional assemblies greater access to the European lawmaking process and allow them to assess proposed EU legislation more closely with regard to its local financial and political impact. 192. The Local Government Association (LGA) expects that the rights and responsibilities of local government with regard to monitoring subsidiarity would be respected by the national parliament: “It would seem consistent to hold that where there is a democratically-elected sphere of government, such as any future directly-elected English regional assembly, it should also have the right and responsibility to monitor the impact of EU policy and legislation applying to the geographic area under its jurisdiction, either in its own right or in partnership with local government”(p 47). 193. In their evidence the LGA also pointed to Article 2 of the Council of Europe’s Charter of local self-governm
