Bureau meeting of the EU Committee of the Regions

Brussels, 27 November 2007

Speech by Congress President, Halvdan Skard

President Delebarre, Members of the Bureau, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me first to thank you for your kind invitation to participate in this Bureau meeting. I am very glad to be here today. It is your last meeting before Christmas and, as tradition requires, I should like to make a preliminary evaluation of our joint activities of this year and express some wishes for next year.

As you know, through continuous efforts, both the Committee of the Regions and the Congress support local and regional authorities all over Europe. We share the same values and principles and we both endeavour to ensure local and regional authorities’ participation in the definition of European legislation and policies. Within our own institutional procedures, with our legal instruments and respective capacities, we both help local and regional authorities to build a democratic and prosperous Europe.

Obviously, we must take advantage of all opportunities open to us to work in synergy, to ensure complementarity between our actions, and to make the best use of our respective strengths. This means that our Europe cannot disregard existing institutions and legal frameworks. The Congress firmly believes in the importance of its relations and co-operation with the Committee of the Regions. This is why we recently have modified our Statutory Resolution to specifically mention strengthened co-operation with the CoR. 

Over the past few years, the partnership between the Committee of the Regions and the Congress has developed considerably. Recently the Juncker Report and the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and the Council of Europe, signed in May 2007, have given us the opportunity to further strengthen this partnership.

The Memorandum of Understanding specifically asks the Congress and the Committee of the Regions to reinforce co-operation in the fields of local and regional democracy, good governance and cross-border and inter-regional cooperation. I should like to draw your attention therefore to some recent joint activities and to put forward some proposals for future co-operation between our two institutions.

 

Regional democracy is a major challenge for us: as you know, we recently prepared a draft Charter of Regional Self-Government and we warmly welcome the Declaration your Bureau adopted last September in Villamoura in support of it. We feel the Charter is becoming a flexible, realistic instrument that can be of great benefit not only to countries which have started a process of regionalisation, but also to those which already have an intermediate administrative level between the national and municipal ones. Our joint Conference on the Future of Regional and Local Democracy, planned for next April, will give us an opportunity to gather additional support for the initiative and give impetus to move on towards the possible adoption of the Charter by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.

In this connection I have taken note of the preparation of an own-initiative opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the draft Charter, which would be of great help in supporting this project. Mr Risto Koivisto and Mr Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe have already tabled a proposal in this sense. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the commitment they have both shown, and continue to show.  Let’s hope this will contribute to a successful conclusion to the “regional instrument saga”.

As far as local democracy is concerned, the Council of Europe’s European Charter of Local Self-Government remains a fundamental instrument for guaranteeing the rights of local authorities.  In this respect, the Congress plays the role of watchdog of the subsidiarity principle at the level of national legislation in the Council of Europe member states. I know that the Committee of the Regions plays an equivalent role at the EU level while taking part in its legislative process. We support that this principle should be respected both in the relations between the European Union and the member states and also in the domestic legislation of each member state. We believe that the European Charter of Local Self-Government could be considered the reference text when it comes to recognising the main principles of local and regional self-government.

In this connection, let me mention that Congress is considering the possibility of modifying the Charter so as to allow the EU itself to ratify it. My question to you, is whether you are interested in such a possibility.

Interregional and cross-border co-operation remain a field of priority action both for the Congress and the Committee of the regions. Our Adriatic Euroregion, which has already been established, and the Black Sea Euroregion, which is under construction, have already received the European Union’s support. In this context we welcome the co-operation established between the Congress and the Committee of the Regions for the organisation of the Debrecen Seminar in December on the “Black Sea Synergy Initiative” of the European Commission. We take note that the European Union considers the Black Sea Basin an area of major challenges for the future of Europe. The Congress is ready, together with the Committee of the Regions, to help local and regional authorities to tackle these challenges. 

In addition, co-operation between our two institutions in the preparation of legal instruments which can facilitate cross-border and inter-regional co-operation, has already borne fruit.  On the initiative of our Joint “Contact Group”, the Congress intervened in the drafting of the 3rd Protocol to the Madrid Convention. This is the Council of Europe’s legal instrument on inter-regional co-operation, which is currently being prepared. Our aim is to make sure that the Council of Europe’s instrument will be compatible and complementary with the European Union one (the Regulation on a European Grouping of Territorial Co-operation)

Other Congress initiatives, such as the Association of Local Democracy Agencies (ALDA) and the European Network of Training Organisations (ENTO), unite local and regional authorities of both European Union and non-EU countries. We will devote special attention to the training of civil servants and elected representatives. Our actions will be mainly focused on in South East Europe and Caucasus. These networks could benefit of E.U. support - within its Neighbourhood Policy - and the Congress would welcome the involvement and support of the Committee of the Regions to these initiatives.

Finally, the Committee of the Regions and the Congress are co-operating in election observation missions. As you may know, it was the Congress that proposed to involve directly both the Committee of the Regions and the associations of local and regional authorities in its observation missions. So far, the observation of the referendum on self determination of Montenegro, as well as the monitoring of local elections in Georgia and in Kosovo have proved to be good examples of joint actions to promote local democracy in Europe. The Committee of the Region’s and the Congress’ strategies on election observation complement each other: strong joint delegations bring not only an added value to the visibility of both institutions, but are also crucial for ensuring the credibility of the observation missions. This is why we believe that a common message from both institutions on the results of these observation missions have a better impact than two separate positions. Where appropriate, such co-operation could be extended to pre-assessment evaluation missions. In the future, we may envisage an evaluation of co-operation in this field, perhaps on an annual basis.

With regard to the follow-up to be given to the election observation, in the Congress we submit -on behalf of the Delegation- an observation report to our Bureau and Standing Committee and adopt a political text under the form of a recommendation to the countries concerned. May I propose that you study the possibility that such report be also presented to the Committee of the Regions’ bodies.

But in spite of these on-going initiatives, I personally believe we can do more. The Congress, on its side, will ask its Committees and Working Groups to take into consideration in their activity plans the need to implement the Memorandum of Understanding. The Congress’ Committees and Working Groups will be required not only to reinforce co-operation with the Committee of the Regions’ Commissions, but also to formulate concrete proposals for joint actions and we may also try to reinforce the exchange of views between Chairpersons and members of both institutions.

In addition, concerning the reports that our institutions will prepare on similar subjects, it will be very important to hold regular exchanges of views between our respective rapporteurs.   

President Delebarre, Members of the Bureau,

I should like to conclude on a further positive note. We were honoured by the presence og your president Delebarre  at our Plenary Session. And last week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Mr Gerhard Stahl, Secretary General of the Committee of the Regions, to our Standing Committee meeting in Strasbourg. Such participation is very positive and fruitful. I hope my participation in your meeting will be an additional step towards improving the synergies we all aim to establish. Such reciprocal participation strongly supplements and supports the work of our formal Contact Group.

May I finally focus on the members of the CoR who are also members of the Congress: in Brussels, they are members of the Committee of the Regions, in Strasbourg members of the Congress:   thanks to having one foot in each institution, they constitute a solid foundation which can bring extra weight to the defence of local and regional democracy in the Greater  Europe.

Thank you for your attention.