Strasbourg, 2 July 2010 CDLR-Bu(2010)14
Item 9 of the agenda
BUREAU OF THE
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY
(CDLR)
UTRECHT REVIEWS
Secretariat Memorandum
prepared by the
Directorate General of Democracy and Political Affairs
Directorate of Democratic Institutions
 |
Introduction
In the Declaration adopted at the Utrecht conference, the Ministers responsible for local and regional government agreed to undertake a review of four distinct topics. The first two relate to (a) the relationship between the intergovernmental sector and the Congress and (b) the country monitoring by the Congress and would be conducted by the Ministers with an invitation to the Congress to join in, while the second two would cover (c) a possible common agenda setting by the Ministers and the Congress and (d) the evaluation of the work of the Council of Europe in the field of local and regional democracy, and should be done jointly by the Ministers and the Congress, once the first two are implemented.
The Ministers entrusted their colleague, the Minister of territorial policy of Spain, Mr Manuel Chaves, with the task of ensuring continuity of work between the sessions of the conference, which would include the “reviews” decided at Utrecht.
At the initiative of the CDLR, an advisory group has been established in order to act as a “sounding board” for the Minister and his rapporteur, Mr Enrique Ojeda, Director-General of Cooperacion Autonomica in the same ministry.
The advisory group held a meeting on 21 June in Paris, to exchange views on the outline for the implementation of the reviews and the roadmap established by Mr Ojeda. Members agreed that:
a) the four reviews would be conducted simultaneously, in the framework of a single process and report;
b) the Minister would send a letter to his colleagues requesting their input on the basis of a short questionnaire drawing on the working paper prepared for the 21 June meeting. Input from Congress and national associations of local authorities would also be solicited;
c) it would be appropriate for the group to meet again in September/October to react to the first paper established by the rapporteur on the basis of the replies received to the above-mentioned questionnaire;
d) Minister Chaves may consider favourably the possibility of addressing the Congress at its next session in October 2010;
e) the process should be completed and the report published in early 2011 in time for the CDLR at its meeting in Spring 2011 to consider and prepare the appropriate decisions for the Ministers to adopt at the Kiyv conference.
Mr Ojeda signalled his consent with these suggestions.
At the meeting, the Congress representatives informed the group of the steps recently taken by the Congress towards its own internal reform which include a streamlining of structures and a reprioritisation of activities around monitoring, human rights and election observation.
The representatives of the CDLR in the advisory group are Mr Auke van der Goot (Netherlands), Mr Paul-Henri Philips (Belgium) and Mr Paul Rowsell (United Kingdom). As they are all members of the Bureau, they may wish to supplement this information with their personal insight. Mr Kimmo Collander, who is also a member of the advisory group in his capacity as special advisor to Minister Mari Kiviniemi of Finland, will take part in the discussion on this agenda item.
Action required
The Bureau is invited to take note of the above information and exchange views on the action the CDLR and its members could take in order to contribute to and facilitate the work of Minister Chaves.