26^th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 25 to 27 March 2014

Ceremony: 20 years promoting local and regional democracy

Statement by Hande ÖZSAN BOZATLI, President of the Assembly of European Regions (AER)

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For AER it is not a 20 year celebration but we are reaching next year our 30^th anniversary. Indeed, at the invitation of Edgar FAURE, who at the time was the Vice-President of the European Parliament’s Regional Commission and President of Franche-Comté (F), Presidents of Regions gathered in 1985 in Strasbourg and set up the Council of Regions of Europe (CRE) with a view to establishing the Senate of European Regions. Due to the will of the Regions to have a European organisation which was specifically regional, the CRE held its statutory founding meeting on 14-15 June 1985 in Louvain-la-Neuve (Walloon Region), attended by 47 Regions and 8 European Interregional Organisations. In 1987, the CRE changed its name and became the Assembly of European Regions (AER), underlining that way its will to be the political forum of all Regions.

For the first time in the history of the European institutions, the regions were finally given their own representative body, with a number of seats that was practically sufficient to ensure the representation of most of the main regions of the member states of the Council of Europe: the Senate of the Regions of Europe was virtually born.

In 29 years of existence, the AER has succeeded in developing into the widest independent network of regions in all of Europe. Bringing together nearly 230 regions in 35 countries and 15 inter-regional organisations, the AER can proudly boast that it has represented and reinforced the voice of the Regions in some key areas for their institutional recognition and their development. From promoting regionalism in Europe to training regional officials, from implementing cooperation programmes to exchanging best practice, from extending the principle of subsidiarity to the local and regional authorities and of course lobbying for the creation of the Committee of the Regions and the Congress of Local and Regional authorities.

We are stronger together and we must ensure that everyone understands why our 4 organisations (Congress, CoR, CEMR, AER) are relavant and have a role to play. We indeed cover different thematics, geographical areas and institutional levels.

- Congress: Focusing on local and regional democracy as well as improving local and regional governance throughout wider Europe

- CoR: crucial in voicing the local and regional concerns within the European Union

- CEMR: closer to AER in its attribution but covering local authorities as well and working with associations

- AER: only covering regional authorities in wider Europe. Lobbying and exchange of best practices at the heart of its work.

Background: AER, as mentioned earlier, was the main initiator for the creation of the Congress at the time, and has benefited from an observer status to the Congress since then. AER has been working for several years in close cooperation with the Congress, for its Centurio programme which supported the exchange of civil servants, and ran until 2004, or in other fields, such as the Black Sea. 

The cooperation agreement aims at institutionalising our cooperation with the Congress and giving a strong visibility to our partnership. 

AER and the Congress share the same concerns, which are reflected in the agreement. The agreement focuses namely on three key priorities which are relevant for 2014-2015 (and maybe beyond):

- promoting regional self-government and supporting devolution and decentralisation processes in Europe (AER helped Poland, Romania, Bulgaria join the EU by developing decentralisation, always ready to do more)

- responses by regions to the political, economic and social crisis that Europe is facing (mention the crisis summits and the publication that will follow this year)

- the participation of young people in political, economic and social life (mention the political report on youth participation)

Objectives of the agreement

- To strengthen our cooperation and enhance thereby the voice of Regions in Europe

- To share expertise on key issues of relevance for our Regions

I commit, as stated in the agreement to make sure that AER will actively contribute to the sessions of the Chamber of Regions of the Congress and the meetings of its bureau as well as the plenary sessions of the Congress an dits committees.

We are starting from tomorrow with Urs Wüthrich Pelloli from Basel Landschaft (CH) who will present the detail of our cooperation agreement and with Beat Rohner, the President of the Youth Regional Network and AER EB member who will take the floor on the issue of youth employment.

We are looking forward to welcoming Congress members at our activities. 

Regionalism is a "lively issue", and many reforms are on their way in Europe. 

AER and the Congress will do their best to ensure that such changes are proposed on a bottom-up way and communicated to citizens, as they are the ones which Regions are accountable to.