A term that appeared first in 1931 in the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno” defines it as a principle according to which “we cannot take away from the particulars and transfer to the community attributions that they are able to decide by themselves using their own means”. The Treaty establishing the European Community (EC Treaty) adopts this principle in Article 5. European subsidiarity is defined as follows: In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Community shall take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community. In other terms, according to the principle of subsidiarity, the Community acts only where its action provides added value with respect to national added values. Specifically, it is the principle whereby the European Union (EU) does not take action (except in the areas that fall within its exclusive competence) unless it is more effective than action taken at national, regional or local level. It is closely bound up with the principles of proportionality and necessity, which require that any action by the EU should not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaty. The Treaty of Amsterdam, which came into force in 1999, has taken up the overall approach that follows from this declaration in a Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality annexed to the EC Treaty. Two provisions of the Protocol are the systematic analysis of the impact of legislative proposals on the principle of subsidiarity and the use, where possible, of less binding Community measures. Each year the European Commission produces a report (Better lawmaking) for the European Council and the European Parliament, which is devoted mainly to the application of the subsidiarity principle. The Convention on institutional reform established by the Laeken Declaration in December 2001 has prepared, through its Working Group on “Subsidiarity”, proposals with a view to taking more account of this principle without detracting from the aim of legislative simplification. It is suggesting the setting up of a political monitoring system (via an early warning system for national parliaments allowing them to deliver a reasoned opinion on a Commission proposal) or a judicial control system (creation of a subsidiarity chamber within the Court of Justice in order to strengthen ex post monitoring). The possibility of abolishing the Protocol on subsidiarity and replacing it by a number of Articles in the new treaty has also been raised. See: Laeken Declaration