European Subsidiarity Protocol
A proposed framework for addressing governance latency in the European Union.
The structural challenge
The European Union is the most advanced polycentric governance system in the world. However, as highlighted in the Draghi report on competitiveness, managing 27 diverse economies through uniform regulation creates severe governance latency—a structural mismatch between where knowledge exists and where decisions are made.
This is not a failure of subsidiarity as a constitutional principle; it is a failure of measurement. Today, subsidiarity is politically interpreted, but it is not empirically diagnosed.
A proposed operational upgrade
The European Subsidiarity Protocol proposes a missing empirical layer. It is not designed to replace existing EU mechanisms like the Early Warning System or REFIT, but to upgrade them from political arguments to evidence-based instruments.
By introducing the Global Subsidiarity Index (GSI), the protocol aims to enable institutions to systematically measure where policy decisions should be routed, balancing local capacity with the need for European interoperability.
Core briefing materials
Technical documentation
Specifications for the proposed diagnostic framework and actuation layer.