1064^th Meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies

Strasbourg, 9 September 2009

Statement by President a.i. Ian Micallef Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities

Madame Chairman,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to you today, as I am convinced that constructive dialogue and closer working relations between the Congress and the Committee of Ministers will serve to advance the objectives of this Organisation as a whole.

I would like to look at our relations from the perspective of the situation of local and regional democracy in Europe today.

Compared to fifteen years ago, the year when the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities was created, this situation saw major improvements. With the process of decentralisation, the governments of Europe have recognised first the legitimacy and then the usefulness of local and regional governance. Local democracy today is an accepted fact, an essential component of any democratic system, and the object of strong consensus in our member states.

However, it is also clear that the health of local democracy and the quality of local governance still varies in Europe. It is not always satisfactory. There are still places where local democracy has not yet been fully established or reached its full strength. Local and regional authorities in some countries still suffer from the lack of competences, or from inadequate resources. You still have cases where the autonomy of local authorities is not fully respected. In other words, there are many causes for concern, reminding us that, despite the spectacular advance of local democracy over the past decades, there is still much to be done.

In this respect, we see the role of the Congress as providing an analysis of national situations of local and regional democracy in our member states, engaging national governments in dialogue, to work together to bring improvement. Our tools in achieving this are the regular monitoring of local democracy and the observation of local and regional elections, in an interactive process involving local and national authorities and the Council of Europe as a whole.

When I say “regular”, I mean “constant”, an ongoing process – not one visit every ten or fifteen years, followed by a statement highlighting the problems and breaches of the Charter, and then a deafening silence for ten more years. This work, this dialogue must be continuous, because it lies at the heart of the good functioning of democracy. By the same token, this work must be carried out everywhere in Europe – in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South.

There is no paradise on our continent. We cannot divide Europe into saints on one side and sinners on the other.  We need to protect local democracy in all our member states: problems can arise anywhere.

The present economic and financial crisis has shown that local authorities in any member state can fall victim to arbitrary budgetary cuts. This is why our monitoring of the Charter is so important for local democracy on our continent.

And yet, our monitoring activities are far from what we wish for. I will be honest with you: as acting President of the Congress, I cannot be satisfied with the state of play. We need to monitor every country on a regular basis, and maintain dialogue between monitoring visits, to keep the exercise alive.

We need regularity. In the Congress we have estimated that, as a rule, each member state should be monitored every five years. This translates into some 10 monitoring missions per year. To this we need to add the fact-finding missions, where the Congress Bureau gives a mandate to examine a specific issue.

By this estimate, today the Congress is 30 to 35 missions short of completing the picture of the situation of territorial democracy in Europe.

To me, this is disquieting, to say the least.

It is disquieting because I, as well as my fellow Congress members, believe that this activity is our most important contribution to the work of the Council of Europe, to advancing the priorities of this Organisation. Democracy is not a state of things but a process of evolution of our understanding and practice, and the Congress acts to apply this understanding and improve this practice in our communities. I would say:  this is our added value – in pursuing the objectives of the Council of Europe. As the Committee of Ministers does at national and European level, so the Congress acts at the level of villages, towns, cities and regions.

We need to take this into account in our budgetary discussions – both within the Congress and the Committee of Ministers.

I do understand today’s budgetary constraints. But I am also convinced that in this situation, the Congress, as all the instances of our Organisation, must be judged against the contribution that it makes to attaining the overall goals of the Council of Europe. We are all in the same boat: local democracy, local governance and local policies are not in contradiction or competition with national policies and priorities – they are complementary.

With this in mind, I am appealing to you today. If monitoring local and regional democracy is something that you consider useful, let us discuss the means to ensure it. The Congress has put forward for your consideration a recommendation on budgetary resources. We have done this for the first time in order to engage you in a constructive political dialogue, to discuss together how the Congress can contribute to this Organisation's objectives. It is you, the Committee of Ministers, who set the policy of this Organisation and make the difficult budgetary choices. And I should add that we are looking at other forms of financing, including voluntary contributions from member States who have a particular interest in our work.

In the same vein, if you consider that dialogue between the Committee of Ministers and the Congress is something useful, let us discuss the possibilities for maintaining and enhancing it. To this end, I propose to set up a joint group between our two bodies. We can understand your discomfort at the idea of another institutional structure. However, this group should not be as “ambitious” as the Joint Committee with the Parliamentary Assembly, but a small, representative group, which could meet at regular intervals. Of course, we will agree together its composition and modalities of its functioning, which I am open to discuss with you.

More generally, the Congress wishes to pursue its cooperation with all the instances of this Organisation, with your committee, with the CDLR and with the Conference of European Ministers responsible for Local and Regional Government. We do so in a positive spirit, bearing in mind our specific role, at the same time sharing the goals of this Organisation.

I wanted to be frank with you today and as pragmatic as possible. I am convinced that the Congress can contribute to the goals of this Organisation, cooperating with you, the Committee of Ministers, as we are already doing with the Parliamentary Assembly.

I thank you for your attention.