Forum on “Good governance for sustainable development and a clean environment”
17 May 2008, Algiers (Algeria)
Speech by Ian Micallef, President of the Chamber of Local Authorities of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to address today this Forum, organised at a time when the questions of the environment and sustainable development are increasingly critical issues for our societies.
Today is also an opportunity to reaffirm and reinforce the spirit of Euro-Arab dialogue. It is vital that we continue to develop our cooperation. Our efforts to bridge Europe and the Mediterranean are gaining momentum.
I would like to pay tribute to the work of the COPPEM in this respect, and in particular my colleague Fabio Pellegrini, who is here today, for their ceaseless efforts in forging a new spirit of trust and understanding between our communities, which are all too often presented as being poles apart.
I am particularly pleased that this dialogue continues today in Algiers. The FACM has been doing great work here and is an important partner in COPPEM. Most recently we have also had the pleasure to work together in the Euro-Med Encounters, for which we were together in Tangiers just a few weeks ago.
This increase in cooperation can only be for the good. It is by meetings such as these that we learn how much we have in common and how much we stand to gain by working together.
The Congress that I represent today is a body that exists to bring together local and regional authorities across Europe. By working together we are able to develop and implement good standards for governance at the local and regional level, not least in the areas of sustainable development and a clean environment which are our primary concern today.
The Congress is one of the pillars of the Council of Europe, an organisation which exists to defend and extend human rights throughout Europe and is home to the European Convention on Human Rights. The issues we are addressing today are central to these values; we believe that a healthy environment and access to water and sanitation should be considered as fundamental human rights. The enjoyment of all the rights protected by the European Convention starts with the right to life.
The sustainable development of territorial communities is central to the Congress’ activities. We understand the term in its broadest sense to mean not only protection of the environment and natural resources but also the incorporation of social, cultural and economic dimensions. We also see sustainable development as an integral part of local democracy and our citizens' rights.
We see ourselves as a laboratory for European construction. We take a comprehensive approach to the challenges of globalisation and European integration. We must advance united and involve everyone in our collective effort. A vibrant local and regional democracy is an essential part of this development.
To do this we work closely with national associations of local and regional authorities in our member states. When the Council of Europe admits a new member state, one of our first tasks is to make contact with the national association of local and regional authorities. Where there is no such association, we work with the relevant government ministry to see how such an association can be established.
Currently we are looking at how we can share the fruits of our cooperation with neighbouring countries, in particular those on the southern rim of the Mediterranean. We recently worked with your neighbours in setting up the National Association of Local Authorities of Morocco. Omar Bahraoui, Mayor of Rabat and Chairman of this new national association of local authorities (- also known to some of you as an active member of COPPEM - ) will be addressing our Plenary session in Strasbourg next week to discuss how we can further develop our cooperation with his country.
I urge the Algerian local authorities to seriously consider forming their own national association. I believe that this is a pre-requisite for good governance at the local level, and it will enable us to establish a permanent dialogue with out counterparts in your country.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The theme of this workshop is the importance of good governance for tackling the problems of the environment and sustainable development.
Sustainable development is essential for our citizens. The inhabitants of our towns and cities are not prepared to suffer in silence the consequences of uncontrolled global economic development that threatens the environment. They are not prepared to sit by and accept climate change, the destruction of our natural resources and the ever more serious effects of pollution on human health. Instead, they are demanding a form of controlled development that will establish the basis for sustainable growth and ensure them a good quality of life, employment and a reasonable future for their children. This is the challenge that we as local representatives have to meet.
Sustainability is not ecological romanticism: it is a matter of public health, safety and basic resources. These issues affect daily life in our towns, cities and regions. The future well-being of our planet depends upon us all working together to create a sustainable world where our finite natural resources are used wisely.
The Congress is convinced that the ecological crisis is of the result of poor governance and that the solutions can be found through greater cooperation, exchange and sharing of responsibilities between all levels of governance. In Europe we are seeing that the process of European integration – at the national level but also at the level of regional and local authorities – is leading to closer cooperation and that most environmental concerns can be improved through transfrontier cooperation and the creation of Euro-regions.
Everybody supports the principle of sustainable development. Putting it into practice is another matter. The interdisciplinary approach that this requires inevitably runs up against entrenched and rigid practices and cultures in the public sphere.
The non-sustainable trends of which we are well aware - climate change, energy consumption, threats to public health, poverty, demographic pressures and an ageing population, the depletion of natural resources – these require urgent and short term action while the same time we need to establish long-term objectives.
For us at the Congress, the main challenge is how to secure a progressive change in our current non-sustainable forms of consumption and production, and how to alter the compartmentalised way in which we frame and implement our policies.
We advocate an integrated, multi-partner, multidisciplinary and participative approach. If we are to develop corporate management strategies, those concerned need to be properly trained and local resources strengthened.
The key to sustainability management is initiatives that reinforce collaboration between public authorities and all stakeholders and which offer ways to inform and involve the people whom we represent. There can be no satisfactory policy regarding the environment without the involvement of local and regional authorities as real decision-makers.
Urbanisation is a global phenomenon. We all need to respond to the challenges and move towards more sustainable cities. However, the global environmental crisis takes on a specific form in urban areas and calls for specific analysis and treatment in the context of urban ecology.
In addition to the strict protection of the local environment which they must provide for their territory and their citizens, our towns and cities have a major role to play in protecting, restoring and managing the global environment.
In terms of the level of economic activity, the increasing size of our urban populations and the ability to generate appropriate behavioural models, our towns and cities are in the front line of the fight for a more liveable planet. We must encourage them in this responsibility which is crucial for the future of our societies.
In keeping with this spirit, we are committed to developing an urban ecology aimed at a more sustainable kind of urban development. We undertake to reduce the environmental footprint of our towns and cities, to preserve their natural resources, to maintain and enhance their biodiversity, to provide access for all to public assets and their networks, and to make energy efficiency central to our policies.
We are keen to share our acquis in the field of local governance with our neighbours in the Arab world, and we invite you to join with us in our projects and see how they can be applied in your context. What we need today is to find a capacity for exchanges between European and Arab territorial communities living together in peace, a capacity for increasing their cooperation for development.
The Mediterranean Union
In this regard, and speaking also as a Maltese politician, I am delighted at the initiative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to launch a “Mediterranean Union” at the forthcoming summit in Paris on 13 July. I suggest that we join our efforts to find a way of putting this idea into practice.
With France soon taking up the Presidency of the European Union, this is a great opportunity to bring the countries bordering the Mediterranean more closely together so that we can make a decisive impact on the issues of environment and sustainable development.
I am pleased at the interest that the Algerian authorities are showing in this project. The visit of Bernard Kouchner to this city earlier this week underlined that Algeria has an important role to play in moving this project forward.
This Mediterranean Union is attracting considerable interest throughout the Mediterranean area. It illustrates a growing conviction in Europe that European construction cannot be achieved without the Mediterranean, and the Arab world in a larger sense. The fact that my country is a stepping stone between two shores of the same sea only strengthens my conviction that this Union is possible and that it is something worth striving for.
Today we have the opportunity to add our support to this proposal and convey this to the French Presidency of the European Union. I urge you to do so.
Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude,
Our task today is to work together to foster a culture of sharing responsibility, to coordinate and strengthen the efforts of all actors at the local, regional and national levels to preserve and restore the planet's resources.
I wish you every success in your discussions, and I am trust that by the end of today we will have a clear idea of how we can move forward on these issues together.
Thank you.