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

Strategy on the right of local authorities to be consulted by other levels of government

Statement by Anders KNAPE, rapporteur on “Strategy on the right of local authorities to be consulted by other levels of government”

Check against delivery

I am very pleased to present this strategy to you today. Although this is a new text, it does not come out of the blue. In 2012, you adopted Resolution 347 on the right local authorities to be consulted by other levels of government. This Resolution commits the Congress to drawing up the strategy that we have before us today.

Our rapporteur on this subject was our much-loved colleague Britt-Marie Lövgren. It was her last report for the Congress before her untimely death at the end of 2012. So I like to think that, in a small way, we are paying tribute to her today by carrying on the work that she began.

To ensure a correct follow-up of this work the Congress Bureau decided to appoint a thematic rapporteur, and it is my privilege to have been entrusted with this role.

The consultation of our local and regional authorities - by central government - on all matters that concern them - is one of the pillars of our local democracy. It is at the heart of our work in local and regional democracy. It is a central feature of the decentralisation process – it is the oil – the lubricant that ensures that our complex government machinery runs smoothly.

It is a vital process which serves to ensure that our multi-level governance functions effectively and that we do not waste time and resources by being ill-informed of each other’s needs.

So it is a big issue. It is one of the main principles enshrined in the European Charter of Local Self Government and it comes up time and time again in our monitoring.

A few months ago, we listed consultation as one of the “recurrent issues” that we meet in our monitoring work. This was a list that sent to the Committee of Ministers at the end of last year.

We would like to have an in-depth discussion with the Committee of Ministers on how we can make improvements in this area.

We have had a habit in the Congress - and one that I hope is beginning to change - of adopting texts and then forgetting about them. Because this is an issue that we cannot forget about.

When we adopted our resolution on consultation, back in 2012, we also adopted a Recommendation to the Committee of Ministers, in which we made a large number of substantive proposals.

Last year the Committee of Ministers adopted a reply to our recommendation. I have it here in front of me. The reply, which just 4 paragraphs, informs us – as if we didn’t know - that this principle is safeguarded in the Charter and that the CDLR produced a report on a similar subject several years ago. Not a single one of our proposals is addressed.

At the meeting of the Congress Bureau last month, we had an exchange of views with the Dutch Ambassador - the Ambassador who chairs the Committee of Ministers Rapporteur Group on Democracy, which is the body that deals with the issues that most concern the Congress.

My colleague Marc Cools raised this issue – of the poor quality of the Committee of Minister’s reply to our recommendation on consultation. I hope that the message was heard. Our message is clear: we are not going to give up on this issue, we are going to keep raising it.

If consultation is so important, and if everybody agrees that it is important, then why is it so often mentioned as being a problem? I suggest that the answer lies (partly) in the nature of the beast.

Consultation doesn’t come naturally – it requires a considerable effort. It is much easier to hide in your corner and to make your own plans and polities and laws. Consultation requires us all to come out of our shelters, to meet each other and to engage in real dialogue.

So we know that consultation - however much we all pay lip-service to it – doesn’t come naturally. It is not easy and it is very likely to remain a problem for the foreseeable future.

It is for this reason that we have prepared the strategy that you have in front of you – to enable us to take this work forward - and to ensure that we make some progress in this area.

If you look at the strategy – you will see that it is very simple. We are proposing to issue some guidelines on what makes for good consultation processes. We will finalise these guidelines and send them out to all our delegations and our associations within the coming months. Then, in order to make sure that you don’t just forget about them, we will send you a questionnaire next year to find out whether your consultation practices are in line with our guidelines.

This gives you a short but realistic timeline to do something in your own country to implement the guidelines. Then, in two years’ time, we will prepare another report, giving the results of this questionnaire, evaluating what has been achieved and what still needs to be done.

It is all very simple, but for most of us, it will require some effort on our part to check that the consultation procedures that we are following (assuming that we have such procedures) are in line with the Congress guidelines.

Let me say a few words about consultation at the international level.

We hear more and more and multilevel governance, which as some of you are aware, is an issue that our partner organisation, the Committee of the Regions (which may have invented the term) are doing much to promote. The principle of Multilevel governance – from the point of view of the Committee of the Regions – is to ensure that cities and regions are properly consulted in the formulation of EU policies. Here at the Council of Europe, we have a different perspective. What we need to defend and pursue with regard to the work of the Council of Europe, is to ensure that member states consult our associations in respect to the intergovernmental work of this Organisation.

Last week, our Secretary General Andreas Kiefer wrote to the heads and deputy heads of all the Congress delegations, drawing attention to that fact that several member states send regional representatives to represent their authorities in these Council of Europe steering committees. In some member states, consultations are held within the country concerned before a position is shaped for a meeting. This is an area where we as the Congress can do more and I believe that we should increase our efforts to make sure that the voice of our cities and regions is heard in these committees.

A few words about the guidelines. If you look at our 2012 report, you will see that the guidelines take up all of the recommended practices that we discussed in the report.

We underline that consultation is in the interests of all the parties concerned. It is not a luxury.

The consultation process depends on trust between levels. It needs to be early and transparent.

For consultation to be effective, it needs to be properly anchored in the policy and regulatory framework of each member state.

The guidelines will underline the important role that nationals associations have in representing local and regional authorities at central level and in safeguarding their right to be consulted on matters that concern them. Logically it is important that in countries where there is more than one national association they need to cooperate closely and find common positions in order to influence government policy.

They will underline the importance that consultations take place in writing and that enough time is given for consultation.

The guidelines will also recommend that local and regional government expertise is involved in the drafting of policies and legislation at an early stage. It is not enough to consult on the final policy when there is a tight deadline and it is difficult to enter into negotiations to change texts.

They will require that the results of consultation are made clear through a written explanation of the reasons why any proposals or changes were not made.

I trust that we all agree with these principles. I look forward to hearing your comments on this strategy and I am open to your suggestions. Allow me to conclude by reminding you that we all have a role to play here.

Good consultation practices cannot be achieved overnight. They require a substantial effort on the part of each and every one of us. I count on your support in this important work.

[Lastly, I would like to thank my colleagues from SALAR, the Swedish Association for Local and Regional Authorities, for their expert help in preparing this text. ]