Frédéric Vallier: “The Congress is a local democracy think tank"

Pointing out that “local and regional democracy is never final or complete”, the Secretary General of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), Frédéric Vallier, welcomes the fact that the Congress has shifted the focus back onto promoting and safeguarding local and regional democracy. In his interview, he emphasises how keen the CEMR is to co-operate with the Congress in this area.

Interview – 16 September 2010

Question: As the oldest European association of municipalities, you were the first, in 1951, to twin municipalities in different countries and then to make the voices of local elected representatives heard in Europe. Having followed the development of the Congress since its beginnings, how do you see its future?

Frédéric Vallier:The current reform of the Congress is of special interest to us because we ourselves are contemplating changes to our existing set-up. We have reached a balancing point and we must find ways of continuing to progress, especially as promoting local and regional democracy is a never-ending challenge. In many countries, including the “old democracies”, there are attempts to recentralise certain sectors, which is a cause for concern. The Congress has to keep a particularly close eye on such trends and has the right tools to do so, such as its monitoring systems, which should be enhanced still further.

Question: Do the Congress’s projects seem to you to serve these aims?

Frédéric Vallier:The Congress’s core defining task is to promote local and regional democracy and it should concentrate on this rather than dealing with subjects which are addressed elsewhere.  It is the Congress’s job to serve as a local democracy think tank. We would also like it to be even more involved in training for the local elected representatives of the new democracies and the training of the trainers who work with them. It is essential for local democracy to gain a solid footing in the countries of the new Europe as failure there would be disastrous.

Question: How do you see the CEMR’s co-operation with the Congress developing in the future?

Frédéric Vallier:We are not a European institution but we are a ”cousin” of the Congress with close links to it. We have many experts who are ready to work with the Congress to enhance local democracy and willing to help it. There are, for example, still too many countries which have failed to establish a lasting local government administrative service. At every election, the whole staff changes and this is neither efficient nor desirable. And, of course, there is a need to step up the fight against corruption at local level. Corruption is both morally indefensible and a hindrance to economic development. There is a need to be able to identify it more readily so that it can be more effectively prevented, and the CEMR has some expertise in this area, which we would like to place at the Congress’s disposal. It is all the more essential for us to pool our efforts to promote local democracy considering that, on their own, our resources are, and always will be, limited.