Ref:

Halvdan Skard, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Speech to the Ministers' Deputies

21 May 2008

Mr Chairman,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since its inception in 1994, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, like its predecessor, the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities, has been pursuing its goal of encouraging, stimulating and accompanying the development of territorial democracy in our countries. The collapse of Communist regimes, the acceleration of European integration processes and the shift of power in the national/local balance have propelled Europe's territorial communities into political prominence, and these local and regional authorities have in turn sought to reinforce the political role of our Congress as their representative elected assembly. In May 2007, the Committee of Ministers recognised this by adopting the new Congress Charter, acknowledging the Congress’ position in the institutional balance of the Council of Europe.

It is clear today that our Congress, which has been underpinning the Council of Europe action in the field of local self-government for so many years, is gaining in maturity and in political weight as a unique body monitoring the state and development of local and regional democracy in Europe, and as a driving force behind decentralisation processes on our continent and increased transfrontier cooperation between our cities and regions. I would add that the Congress today has a unique institutional presence and a remarkable range and depth of activities.

Our primary goal is to encourage, stimulate and accompany the development of local democracy in our countries. During my Presidency, the Congress has taken important steps in refining and developing its monitoring tools and its capacity to observe local and regional elections. We are attracting increasing recognition as a political body that is willing and able to defend democracy at the local and regional level.

This increase in visibility is also coming about because local authorities are increasingly turning to the Congress and calling on it to ensure that the European Charter of Local Self-Government, this cornerstone treaty of ours, is properly applied and respected in their country.

Take my own country, for example. The Congress recently adopted an opinion on the conformity of Norwegian legislation with the Charter. Over the last few months we have also seen monitoring or fact-finding missions to Turkey, Latvia and Belgium, to look at sensitive issues which go to the heart of the human rights the protection of which is the raison d’etre of the Council of Europe. We are currently in dialogue with the relevant ministries of Croatia, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom about other issues regarding the implementation of the European Charter.

Our coverage of local and regional elections continues to grow, thanks to developing cooperation with national associations and other partners. Election observation is an important part of our monitoring activities and is now followed by the adoption of relevant recommendations and resolutions by the Congress. Earlier this month we were observing the local and provincial elections in Serbia.

Inter-regional cooperation is another of our core activities. The Congress played a key role in setting up the Adriatic Euroregion, which is now operational, with its governing body, the Adriatic Council, headquartered in Pula, Croatia. The Congress has also been applying itself with the same commitment to the project to set up a Black Sea Euroregion.

The relationship between the Congress and the national associations of local and regional authorities has been another priority area. The national associations are our key partners in the member states and we believe that an increased political role for them will not only serve to anchor the principles of local democracy more deeply in their countries, but will also enable us to promote the Council of Europe standards more effectively at the local and regional level.

As far as our geographical regional priorities are concerned, we continue to give special attention to Southeast Europe, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, working to ensure that the citizens of these regions can benefit from the standards of local democracy that most Europeans now take for granted. In March 2007, to take but one example, I spoke at the Seminar on Regionalisation in Ukraine that we organised with the Ukrainian authorities.

In South-East Europe and South Caucasus in particular, we have a number of special programmes and activities focusing on promoting local democracy, national associations of local authorities and confidence-building measures between communities. I think of such programmes as the Local Democracy Agencies, a very effective model of cooperation, which is continuing to expand. The latest agency to open was in Georgia and a new one is planned to open in Shkodra, Albania, later this year. We also have the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe, NALAS, which adopted its Action Plan last year.

The Congress takes seriously its role as one of the major institutions of the Council of Europe, and we seek to play a full part in the activities of the organisation.

In this context we welcome the commitment of the Swedish Chairmanship, as spelt out in its priorities, to enhance the political dialogue with the Congress.

We believe that we have a special role to play in bringing Europe closer to the citizen. It is in this spirit that we took part in the Council of Europe campaigns on domestic violence, running our own poster campaign with a number of local authorities in municipalities across Europe, as well as campaigns to fight human trafficking – with our Declaration, which is available online, receiving signatures from more than 300 municipalities – and the Dosta! Campaign for the rights of Roma, as part of which we have established the Dosta! Prize for Municipalities.

We have also been playing a full part in the Council of Europe's activities in the sphere of intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, with our seminar in Montchanin setting out twelve principles for local authorities, and our publication "Gods in the City". I can also mention our contributions to the events organised by yourselves and the Council of Europe's coordinator on intercultural dialogue, as well as to the White Paper prepared by the Organisation.

The Congress continues its close cooperation with the European Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (the CDLR). We are working together on the implementation of the European Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance at Local Level, approved by the Ministerial Conference in Valencia, Spain, in October last year. We were very pleased to be able to participate in the April conference on the strategy, organised by the Slovak Chairmanship.

The same Conference saw the launch of the European Local Democracy Week. This is a new event, organised in October each year to promote citizens’ awareness of democratic processes at local level, their participation and the dialogue between them and local authorities.

The Congress continues to follow with great interest the work of the Centre of Expertise on Local Government Reform - and we look forward to developing a close partnership with the Centre.

We take an active part in the quadripartite structure of the Forum for the Future of Democracy. We had a major presence in last year's event in Sigtuna, Sweden, where we worked closely with the Swedish association of local and regional authorities, ensuring that the local dimension of the issues discussed was explored in depth. We are planning an equally important contribution to this autumn's Forum in Madrid on the theme of electronic democracy, for which we are preparing a number of reports and will be helping to organise several workshops.

I am aware that the follow-up to such events is every bit as important as the event itself. We are continuing to work with the Swedish authorities in the follow-up to Sigtuna, and this year we will be joining together with the Swedish chairmanship to organise October's Seminar on human rights implementation at the local and regional level, where we will be looking at how to set up independent human rights institutions, such as ombudsmen.

The Congress is equally committed to its role in the quadripartite structure of the North-South Centre. We are very much aware of the value of its activities for our relations with the local and regional authorities in the Mediterranean region, and have recently been working with them on city diplomacy activities. I don't need to remind you of the precarious situation that the Centre is in and would encourage you to continue to support it. We are currently preparing a cooperation agreement with the Centre, which should be finalised before the end of the year.

In a similar vein, and in line with the recommendations of the Warsaw summit, the Congress continues to explore and to develop new forms of cooperation with the European Union, and particularly with its Committee of the Regions. Since our landmark agreement with the Committee in 2005 we have substantially increased our cooperation. The Committee now participates regularly in our election monitoring missions and our respective statutory committees have begun to coordinate their activities. On 20 June, in Brussels, we shall be organising the first of what should become a regular quadripartite meeting between our two institutions.

We are also looking forward to playing a full part in the 60^th anniversary celebrations of the Council of Europe.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Congress is convinced of the importance of a high level of cooperation with Europe's south, the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It is in this spirit that the Congress has been developing the Euro-Mediterranean meetings to promote greater Euro-Arab dialogue. Our links with the Maghreb countries are increasing, particularly with Morocco. We also made a major contribution to the Euro-Arab cities Forum in Dubai in February this year, which decided to hold such forums every three years and set up a Steering Committee to keep this dialogue going.

This Euro-Arab cities dialogue also fits in the framework of the new phenomenon called City Diplomacy, a report on which was adopted at this year’s Spring session in Malaga, Spain. This report will feed into next month's World Conference on City Diplomacy in The Hague, in which the Congress will participate. Our partners recognise that the Congress has a major role to play in coordinating city diplomacy initiative, as the Congress is actively involved in various city networks and processes which can be described as being part of City Diplomacy. I can mention for example Cities for Local Integration Policy (CLIP), Cities for Children, Cities for Peace, the Municipal Alliance for Peace in the Middle East (MAP) and the Berlin Process for young people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

The Congress is also a major partner in the UN Habitat meetings, working on the UN guidelines on decentralisation. These take much inspiration from the European Charter of Local Self-Government. We have been contributing to the finalisation of this document, an activity which will continue next month in Oslo. The monitoring activities of the Congress are proving of great interest to UN Habitat as it draws up its plans to launch and implement this important text.

I am also here to brief you on the 15^th Plenary Session of the Congress. This Session is an important one for the Congress. It is the first session to be organised according to the new Congress Charter which you adopted in May 2007, and which stipulated that all our national delegations must include a minimum of 30% of the under-represented sex.

Our delegations are elected for two years and this year they have to be renewed. I am pleased announce that, as of today, all of our national delegations have met the 30% requirement. I would like to thank the member states for the support that they have given us on this measure.

As you know this session is also the time for elections in the Congress and its organs as well as for its Secretary General. I am therefore speaking to you in my capacity of President of the Congress for the last time and would like to thank you for your co-operation and support of the Congress in its development and strengthening of its political role within the Organisation. I do hope that we can count on your continued support in this respect especially in the current context of ever tighter budgetary limitations.

I won't discuss today all the important reports that are going to be debated - you will find a summary of each report in the appendix to my written presentation. We have 19 reports submitted to the Congress for examination and vote. The topics range from local and regional democracy to the integration of migrants, the use of new technologies, energy culture, a new urban charter, children in the city, interregional co-operation, regional identity, intercultural dialogue and co-operation with NGOs. The session will also be an occasion to revise our rules of procedure to bring them into line with the new Charter and also to clarify some of the existing rules. One of the key texts on the table of our session is the Draft European Charter of Regional Democracy. I shall come back to this later.

There will be a number of ministers attending this session: Mr Mats ODELL, Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Ministry of Finance of Sweden, will speak on behalf of the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers. We will also have:

- Mrs Mari KIVINIEMI, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government of Finland, who is currently preparing a report on how to develop the work of the Council of Europe in the area of local and regional government;

- Mr Antun PALARIĆ, State Secretary, Central State Office for Administration of Croatia, and,

- Mr Vasil KUYBIDA, former Vice-President of the Congress and now Minister for Regional Development and Construction, Ukraine.

We shall continue our dialogue with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe as well as with the new President of the Committee of the Regions.

Our session will also include debates on our cooperation with Japan (with presentations by the Governor of Nara and the Mayor of Ikeda) and a debate on Euro-Mediterranean co-operation with the Mayor of Rabat, Mr Omar EL BAHRAOUI who is President of the new Association of Municipalities of Morocco as well as being the acting chair of the Standing Committee for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership of Local and Regional Authorities (COPPEM).

I'd like to add some words about the future of the Congress.

The European Charter of Local Self-Government remains the jewel in the Congress's crown, a treaty that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. There have been important recent developments in the plans to move this text forward, to update, clarify and extend its powers. Last year the Congress adopted two draft protocols to the Charter:

- in June, a protocol opening the Charter to accession by the European Union and non-member States, and,

- in November, at our Autumn session, the Draft Additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which will introduce crucial new provisions in respect to local authority property and finances.

I would urge you to give these your full attention, in the hope that my successor will be able to oversee this vital expansion of the Charter.

The Charter covers democracy at the local level, and to some degree at the regional level. It has proven more difficult to introduce a separate instrument to cover democracy at the regional level, but I am pleased to announce that this is slowly but surely moving forwards and, as I mentioned earlier, we now have a Draft European Charter of Regional Democracy, which will be discussed at our plenary session. If, as I hope, it is adopted next week, I trust that you will support us in our aim of making this Regional Charter a reality, in order to complete the legislative framework for our activities.

I am convinced that the Congress has a bright dynamic future, propelled by the will of its members to move forwards.

In this spirit, at its last meeting, the Congress Bureau decided to try to organise a second annual session. As you know, the new Congress Charter makes this possible pending budgetary feasibility and at our Spring Session in Malaga we adopted Recommendation 238 (2008) addressed to you to this end. The Bureau's proposal will be presented to the Congress at next week's plenary session.

I believe that Europe will only progress with reinforced co-operation and common standards at local and regional levels. The role and activities of the Congress puts it in a unique position among European institutions to make a major contribution in this respect.

A second plenary session each year would be a big step in this direction. It would inject a valuable dynamic into our work and boost the participation and commitment of our members, most of whom currently see each other too seldom to get a proper sense of the continuity of our activities.

Let me conclude by saying that, as outgoing President, I am aware that I am leaving a Congress that is dynamic, enthusiastic and totally committed to its mission. I call on your support to ensure that the Congress is endowed with the appropriate means to fulfil its mission.