The 33rd COSAC took place in Luxembourg on 17 and 18 May 2005. For the first time in COSAC’s history, a specific piece of EU draft legislation was examined by national parliaments within COSAC. The Commission's 3rd railway package was examined by 31 of the 37 national parliamentary chambers in the 25 Member States.
National parliaments started their scrutiny of this package on 1 March 2005 and completed it six weeks later on 12 April. All participating parliaments drew up a report summarising how they conducted the pilot project, including any lessons learnt during the experiment, which they sent to the COSAC secretariat. At the COSAC meeting in Luxembourg in May 2005, national parliaments reported on the experience they had had examining the legislative proposals of the 3rd railway package and on any difficulties they had encountered.
COSAC unanimously adopted a contribution addressed to the EU institutions criticizing the Commission for providing insufficient justifications for how its proposals complied with the subsidiarity principle. COSAC called on the Commission to produce more in-depth arguments in future and declared that further work should be done to clarify the distinction between the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
COSAC welcomed the pilot project and decided to carry through a second test of the subsidiarity early warning mechanism. The incoming UK COSAC presidency was asked to propose a new subject and timetable for the test.