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

Local and regional democracy in the Netherlands

Statement by Ronald PLASTERK, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Netherlands

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It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to meet with you again. I say “again”, because at my own home less than two weeks ago I received a delegation drawn from your midst wishing to observe the municipal elections.

Today, we shall be discussing your monitoring report concerning the Netherlands. 

You have rightly described how public administration in the Netherlands is undergoing major changes. Precisely for that reason, the moment is interesting and important  to consider those developments from the perspective of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. 

Although I am unable to enter into every facet of the report, there are three subjects that seem to me to be of importance:

1.       Current developments within public administration and the relationship to Dutch local self-government;

2.       Partnership and concerted action between the various governing authorities in the Netherlands;

3.       And, lastly, human rights. 

Local self-government lies at the heart of the monitoring process. The principle of local self-government – the government of municipalities and provinces - is a fundamental component of our polity. Consequently, there is every good reason for its inclusion in the Netherlands Constitution.

However, bringing that principle to fruition continually requires us to find contemporary forms of government that will enable municipalities and provinces to provide a contemporary interpretation of their position within our polity.

As you have also mentioned in your report, we employed dualisation in 2002 and 2003, firstly in the municipalities and then in the provinces, to separate the executive from the elected representative bodies. In the case of municipalities, the executive is vested in the municipal executive; the aldermen are no longer members of the municipal council as well.

On the other hand, the council has a more clearly defined profile as a body of popular representation that sets frameworks and exercises scrutiny. A comparable format applies to the provinces. The mayor and the King’s Commissioner are stabilising factors within this set-up.

These changes have brought about the goals that we wanted to achieve: strengthening the administrative and democratic operation of municipalities and provinces. It is now ten years since the introduction of those changes. Presently, we are facing another step directed towards the strengthening of democracy.

There are three reasons for this:

Firstly, on a greater scale than in the past, our country’s citizens – meaning our municipalities as well, of course – are asking to be given the freedom for greater autonomy. People are no longer content to stand back and simply abide by laws handed down by government authorities.  They are now better informed and, in general, have greater confidence in their own capabilities than was previously the case. While this is, of course, not the case for everyone, it is still a clear trend.

The second starting point is our recognition that the government must give back responsibilities to its citizens. The government is no longer in a position to take on all of these responsibilities. Moreover, citizens have no wish either for the government to be meddling with all of their affairs.

The third point is that the machinery of institutionalised healthcare and welfare has evolved to the point where we risk losing control over it.

The solution that we have decided on in the Netherlands will be in 2015 the transfer from central government to the municipalities of responsibilities relating to healthcare, juvenile welfare and employment.

This will make it possible to take decisions at the local level that affect people’s lives most directly and which were previously taken by the government, given knowledge at the local level of relevant issues and options. An additional advantage is that care and assistance can be organised much more efficiently at the local level.

This major change – one which moves towards the conclusions in your report concerning municipalities being given greater responsibility of their own – is a change that will, of course, have consequences for local authorities themselves.

This transfer of tasks also means the transfer of primary democratic control. Local democracy will acquire greater responsibility as a result. More demands will be placed on assessing the decisions taken by council representative. They will be judged on more matters. This is a cause of concern among some; however, I am convinced that local democracy is capable of bearing this greater level of responsibility. 

Confidence in local democracy is not possible without confidence in the locally active political parties. They should be given full freedom to fulfil their role as a bridge between government and society. This also fits in with Dutch democratic traditions, which attach a great deal of importance to freedom of association and, as a consequence of this, the independent position of political parties. Thus it is not the place of central government to determine how the political parties should operate in their own municipalities. 

In order for municipalities to fulfil the new tasks to be transferred to them, they need to possess sufficient and appropriate expertise.

The best solution in my view is one of merging municipalities, but I do not wish to impose such amalgamations.

This needs to be voluntary and to enjoy popular support. In the final resort, the province has an important role to play where agreement exists on the need for amalgamation but, despite years of discussion, obstructions make a merger seem impossible. Subsequently, a municipal merger must still be approved by both chambers.

An alternative to merger is to work in partnership in relation to specific matters. We also lend our support to such an approach.

It is not only local government that needs a different framework; central government needs one too. Freedom has to be proffered; responsibilities must actually be transferred. The complexity of decentralisation requires both sides to make adjustments: letting go on the one hand, successfully taking up the challenge on the other. 

Your report states with justification that a different, greater role for municipalities, often experiencing considerable growth in scale as well, will have consequences for the intermediate level of governance – an intermediate level of governance that, in the Netherlands, is moreover also being faced with the increasing scale of the water boards, the growth of metropolitan areas and – on top of all that – the ever greater role played by Europe. The intermediate level of governance risks becoming wedged into a corner.

We are certainly not resting on our laurels in this area either. It is the reason why we in the Netherlands are considering a different zoning arrangement of the provinces: an arrangement that better reflects the present day, and one which, as a result, is better linked to the challenges confronting provinces, such as spatial planning and regional public transport. There is no doubt about the importance of the task before the intermediate level of governance.

Given that urgency is at its most pressing in the northern sector of the Randstad region, we have decided to present before parliament as early as this year the bill to merge the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Utrecht. The Northern Sector Province must become a powerful province better able to steer that region’s complex spatial-economic developments.

Regarding the remaining parts of the country, the Cabinet of Ministers wishes to conduct the relevant debate together with the provinces in order to work jointly towards a perspective for strong, future-proof provincial government.

In its updated format, the intermediate level of governance will then be able to deliver on its vital role as a component part of our polity and, further to this, will continue to make an essential contribution towards the way in which we govern our country.

We are on the verge of one of the greatest reforms of public administration in the past thirty years. Changes of this sort cannot be achieved by decree. After all, such an approach would fly in the face of Dutch governmental tradition. Statutory regulations usually come at the end of a journey that has been embarked upon together.

The Inter-administrative Relationships Code is an important document in relation to relations and working in partnership between tiers of government. This code describes the standard etiquette between different types of authority. From an international perspective, the Netherlands is unique in possessing such a code.

An illustration of relevance to your report can be seen in the code’s Article 5, which states that government authorities should involve each other in the development of new policy intentions and sticking points that affect another tier of government. Moreover, this should be done within a timeframe that allows for any subsequent adjustment of the policy intentions. This is the safeguard of consultations held at the “meaningful intervals”, just as you requested.

Appropriately enough, working in partnership is a key concept in the Netherlands. Leaving the code aside, various other forms of partnership exist. For example, we also have government body consultations and administrative dialogue on financial relationships where central government and the decentralised authorities sit down at the table together and interpret important reforms, including those relating to the points specified in your report, such as finance and the degree of policy freedom.

However, good arrangements work only where there is also trust. We are working hard on continuing to strengthen that trust.

Finally, human rights. Local government and human rights cannot be treated separately.

A democracy needs properly operating institutions. However, the question is as always one of how freely people are able to play their part and the degree to which people are afforded protection. Democracy and the constitutional state must be wedded to one another.

Local government plays an important role in protecting human rights, such as protecting the individual against the majority or against injustice and oppression, and protecting the individual’s right to a decent existence from coming to harm.

If I may be so bold, the Netherlands enjoys a good human rights record, certainly when international comparisons are made. However, that is no reason for complacency. Time and again, we must keep aware of the necessity to continue protecting and improving our citizens’ rights.

Protection can involve the prevention of discrimination. The Municipal Anti-Discrimination Provisions Act exists for that very purpose.

However, protection can also involve the right to privacy, which needs to be safeguarded not only at the national level, but also most definitely at the local level.

It emerges clearly from this that human rights are interwoven within the fabric of policy areas and thus also within the current reforms. At present, for example, a reorganisation is underway concerning assistance provided to problem families. We wish to dispense with bodies that work in parallel to one another and, instead, work towards replacing them with one helper per family. However, the consequence will be an intensive exchange of personal, privacy-sensitive data.

We lack an optimum level of expertise on the application of human rights at the local level. To improve this situation, a Human Rights Network Unit has been set up by the Association of Netherlands Municipalities in alliance with, for example, municipalities, universities and Amnesty Nederland. More and more municipalities and organisations are joining forces with this. It is also being backed by the government.

This is something that I have also included expressly in the National Plan of Action for Human Rights, which I launched last December and which, prior to this meeting, I handed over to the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, Mr Muiznieks.

The intended purpose of the Plan is to serve as a tool for the more systematic promotion and observance of human rights at the national level. A readiness to enter into dialogue and areas of vulnerability may also prove a contributing factor in that regard. On 10 April, I shall be speaking to the Dutch parliament about the Plan of Action.  

 

I should like to offer you my heartfelt thanks for giving me this opportunity to share my views on the report and my vision for public administration in the Netherlands.

And now, I’d very much like to hear and answer any questions from you that you might want to ask.