Karl-Heinz Lambertz: “The Congress is to take stock of the situation of regionalisation in Europe”

In reviewing the key issues on which the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities will be working in the coming months, the Chair of the Governance Committee, Karl-Heinz Lambertz (Belgium, SOC), emphasised the need once again to work on the regionalisation issue, from both a theoretical and practical perspective.

Interview – 20.08.2012

The Governance Committee was set up as part of the recent reform of the Congress.  What are your fields of action?

Karl-Heinz Lambertz: We first had to identify exactly how the Committee fitted into this new architecture, but already we have been working on many topics, and in particular the removal of reservations of member states to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the follow-up to the Kyiv Conference and forward-looking questions such as regional and local ombudsmen and citizen participation.  Several reports resulting from our work will be presented at the October 2012 session, including one on macro-regions and another on second tier local authorities.  Whether the Charter applies or not depends on whether a tier of government is defined as local or regional.  In addition, we are working on multi-level governance, which is complicated all the more by the fact that this expression is understood differently by the Council of Europe and the European Union.

In October, you will be presenting a comprehensive report on the Congress’s priorities: what are the broad outlines of this report?

Karl-Heinz Lambertz: Above all, the Congress remains responsible for monitoring and strengthening local and regional self-government in Europe, which is constantly evolving everywhere in the continent.  Several countries have carried out significant reform of their local and regional authorities.  It is our job, through our monitoring visits and reviews of the situation of local and regional democracy in Europe, to study the extent to which these authorities are strengthened or weakened by the reforms.  We are also continuing our work on local government funding and the relationship with the supervisory authorities.  Currently, these problems are particularly acute as certain states are attempting to offload their financial difficulties on other tiers of government, particularly in the countries which are the hardest hit by the crisis.  However, the crisis has shown that citizen trust in institutions first of all has to be won at local and regional level, and it is these levels that must be preserved.  The issue of supervisory authorities also includes consultation of the local level by the national authorities.  The Congress calls for better consultation and dialogue among all levels before decisions of national importance are taken.

In 2013, the Congress will be presenting a report on the situation of regionalisation in Europe.  Will this document be putting forward new initiatives in this area?

Karl-Heinz Lambertz: For two years, we have the “Council of Europe Reference Framework for Regional Democracy”.  It is now time to review the situation of regions in Europe, particularly as the regional level is getting stronger everywhere, although there is still considerable variation.  This report will tie in with another text looking at interregional co-operation, including between regions which are not direct neighbours.  Developing co-operation of this type will enable them to work together on common problems, for example energy efficiency, technological innovation and administrative modernisation. 

In addition, we will be preparing a new overview of developments in cross-border co-operation, particularly between regions separated by non-open borders, i.e. outside the Schengen area and outside the European Union.  Countries such as Russia and Ukraine, and the Balkan countries also have real needs for cross-border co-operation.  Moreover, the Congress could, in the near future, organise a “cross-border co-operation summit” bringing together all the relevant players, including NGOs and research institutes, to discuss the issue.