Strasbourg, 24 February 2010 CDLR(2010)16
Item 9 of the agenda
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY
(CDLR)
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN MEMBER STATES IN THE
FIELD OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY
High Level Meeting on Local and Regional Governance
(Solna, Sweden, 8-9 October 2009)
Secretariat Memorandum
prepared by the Directorate General of
Democracy and Political Affairs
Directorate of Democratic Institutions
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Report
High Level Meeting on local and regional Governance
8-9 October 2009 in Solna, Sweden |
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For the last six years, the country that has held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union during the second half of the year has organised a meeting on the impact of the EU at local and regional level. The meeting brings together senior officials at national level responsible for local and regional self-government and offers a opportunity to discuss relevant issues and exchange experiences concerning the impact of EU-legislation at local and regional level. The purpose of this year’s meeting was to discuss and exchange experiences on the impact of EU-legislations on institutional set-ups, for example co-operation and how to promote correct application of Community law at local and regional level.
The meeting took place in Solna Municipality on 8 -9 October 2009. Representatives from 17 Member States were present plus representatives from Norway and Iceland. Representatives from the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions and the Council of Europe also attended the meeting. Previous meetings have been held in the Netherlands (The Hague - 2004), United Kingdom (London- 2005), Finland (Turku- 2006), Portugal (Guimaraes - 2007) and France (Biarritz - 2008).
At the meeting the EIPA (European Institute for Public Administration) presented a study on the impact of the EU at local and regional level in the Member States. The study had been ordered by six countries (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Norway and Iceland). The meeting decided to send the study to the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Committee of The Regions and the the Council of Europe for their information.
During the meeting three workshops were held on the following themes:
- The dissemination of information about EU policy to local and regional authorities.
- The impact of EU -law on internal organization and possibilities to cooperate.
- How to promote correct application of Community law at local and regional level in order to prevent legal action against the Member States.
Conclusions from the meeting were drawn up on the basis of discussions concerning the future work of the network, the EIPA-study and the discussions in the workshops.
Conclusions
High Level Meeting on Local and Regional Governance
8-9 October 2009 in Solna, Sweden |
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1. Introduction
The High Level Meeting has in two days discussed several issues concerning the impact of EU - legislation on regional and local level in the member States. The European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) presented a study (The institutional impact of EU legislation on local and regional government) with a following plenary discussion. Three workshops were organized with different aspects of the main theme. These conclusions are based on the discussions and presentations in the plenary and in the workshops of the conference.
2. Conclusions – The future work of the HLM
- It is for each member State to define the role and institutional structure of local and regional government, in accordance with the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The responsibilities for the local and regional level differ widely between the member States. This is also recognized in the Lisbon Treaty.
- However, the institutional influence and impact of EU legislation and policy objectives on local and regional government has increased. This is a result of local and regional government implementing 70-80% of EU legislation, and accordingly this development and impact will continue in coming years. It’s a question for each member State to ensure that they make an appropriate analysis and take any resulting action, but to analyse the effects of this institutional influence and impact can be a complex task, not least because it isn’t always easy to forecast or identify the effects clearly. A possibility to improve such analysis is to increase the exchange of knowledge with other member States and jointly undertake some analysis.
Raising the awareness of potential effects by strengthening the dialogue between different stakeholders at the early stage of decision making would enable better law-making and more effective implementation. This of course is a common goal to all member States and also to local and regional authorities.
- Therefore it is more important than ever for member States to meet in networks such as this in order to share knowledge and pool resources etc. The HLM offers a crucial network for this kind of work and should serve as a platform for identification of issues for analysis.
- The HLM should try to develop work within the network through creating small groups – virtually or through meetings as necessary – on issues that concern only some states or are of interest to some states. A good example is the conference organized by the Netherlands and Sweden concerning the Service Directive.
- There is need to carry out the work on the findings of the EIPA -study and analyse the new treaty’s provision on local and regional government. The Netherlands offered to lead a group responsible for such a work.
- The HLM concluded that the questions of the effect of EU policies, on local and regional level, are of such importance that the need to raise the issues to a political level should be taken under consideration.
- HLM therefore very much welcomes Spain for their initiative to hold a meeting addressing these issues during their presidency.
- HLM thanks Belgium for their willingness to arrange a High Level Meeting in the second half of 2010. The HLM-network offers Spain and Belgium to form a working group to assist them in their preparation work. These conclusions cover issues that will be dealt with during the coming presidencies.
- HLM also values the work in the Council of Europe and underlines the need for close co-operation between EU and the Council of Europe.
The HLM welcomes the initiative from the Committee of the Regions to publish a white paper on multilevel governance. It might, together with the outcome of the consultation process, serve as a base for further consideration on how multilevel governance should be addressed in the future.
3. Conclusions – EIPA- Study
HLM express our appreciation to EIPA and Nicis Institute for a very interesting report and a very well accomplished work on this complex subject. The report highlights topics which are of outmost importance for the discussions in the HLM network. The report will be an important ground for future discussions. The HLM conclusions regarding the conclusions and recommendations in the report are as follow:
- The EIPA-report shows the importance of carrying out this kind of studies and HLM invites the Commission, Committee of Regions and the member States to consider the need for this kind of studies in the future.
- The study shows that it is crucial for the member States to make early identification of proposals from the European Commission regarding the possible impact on Regional and Local government. HLM recognize the need to improve the member States analysis of proposals at early stages in the legislation process.
- It is essential to pay attention to, and analyze, any possible impact on the institutional structures, at local and regional level. This is first and most a responsibility for the member States. HLM see the necessity to make analysis of possible impact on institutional setups. The HLM experts are those who, in every member State, are responsible for pointing out the need for this kind of analysis. The HLM-network plays a vital role within the EU in this matter.
- There have been significant improvements of the involvement of Local and Regional Government in the EU-legislation process. The knowledge, both within the member States and in the Commission, regarding the importance of involving these levels has increased. It is however vital to continue and to improve this involvement.
- Using and developing ”implementation teams” or ”dossier teams” might be a fruitful way to strengthening the analysis capacity throughout the policy-making process and improve the final implementation. A co-operation betweens such teams between the member states might also be very profitable.
- HLM sees the benefits in working with the recommendations from local and regional authorities and the Committee of the Regions. It’s however a question for each member State to decide the forms for such work.
- HLM agrees that it seems worthwhile to invest more time and resources in transposing directives.
- The report should be disseminated to the Commission, The European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the Council of Europe for information.
4. Conclusions - Workshops
4.1. Conclusions Workshop 1 - The dissemination of information about EU policy to local and regional authorities
- It’s vital that the Local and Regional authorities are well aware of those EU-rules that have an influence on their activities.
- The local and regional authorities are responsible to assure they have the competence and the information needed to comply with EU-legislation. To achieve this, it’s important that they cooperate, and exchange experience, between themselves.
- It is important to make sure that the Local and Regional self-government is involved through the entire legislation process in order, to improve the analysis to increase the mutual knowledge, understanding and possibilities to manage to implement the legislation successfully.
- Every member State is responsible to secure that the Local and Regional actors receive relevant information, and generally support their need of knowledge. In order to achieve this, the time for implementation of EU-legislation must give room for time to disseminate information to the Local and Regional level.
- Recently many directives such as the Service Directive, Inspire directive and Patient Mobility, demands the needs for cross border contacts through a single point of contact. When the demands for such administrative system is raised it is important to ensure that such demands could be met within different constitutional structures especially when it comes to handling such tasks at local and regional level. The associations of authorities on regional and local level in the member States can have an important role to play in this matter.
- There must be easy way to access information on EU-matters. For instance, information on institutional websites could be more user-friendly.
4.2. Conclusions Workshop 2– The impact of EU law on inter municipal and cross border co-operation
- It is of outmost importance that the member states and the Commission, in the process of EG-legislation, consider the right for the sub national self-government organizations to freely choose forms of organization and the possibilities to cooperate. There is a need of better and broader analysis of these matters and it is essential to increase the exchange of knowledge within the HLM-network.
- It is important to ensure that any impact on the possibilities for co-operation are being identified and brought up to discussion as early as possible, and qualified analysis are carried out.
- The public procurement rules, especially concerning the so called Teckal-criteria’s causes a lot of interpretation problem in member states. Introducing EU-legislation on the matter might give more legal certainty, but legislation might one the other hand cause problem in other aspects. Therefore this is an issue that needs further consideration.
4.3. Conclusions Workshop 3– How to promote correct application of Community law at local and regional level
- It is a task for every member State in accordance with its own constitutional traditions to manage possible problems with correct application of Community Law at the local and regional level. But the exchange of best practice between member States could serve as an inspiration for reforms on the national level. The HLM-network provides a platform for continuing discussions on the topic.
- The local and regional authorities are responsible to assure they have the competence and the information needed to comply with EU-legislation. To achieve this, it’s important that they use the possibility to cooperate and exchange experiences between themselves.
- The HLM noted that the current “pilots” based on partnership between the commission and the member States can contribute to early solutions of complaints, concerning the application of EU-legislation, to the benefit of citizens and businesses.
- The judgments from the European Court of Justice provide an important factor in the relation between the EU and the member States. It is therefore important that information and analysis of the courts judgments is brought forward to the local and regional level, in close co-operation with the local and regional self-government. It is necessary to provide the concerned actors with correct information. The associations of authorities on regional and local level in the member States can have an important role to play in this matter.