Ceremony of the signing of the revised Cooperation Agreement between the Congress and the Committee of the Regions

Brussels, 12 November 2009

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

President Van den Brande,

Secretary General Stahl,

Acting Secretary General Sawicki,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to sign today the new cooperation agreement between the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and the Committee of the Regions of the European Union.

Our two institutions have been close partners since their very establishment, both in 1994, and it is only natural: the Congress and the Committee of the Regions share the common goal of advancing local and regional democracy on our continent, improving governance of our communities and territorial cohesion in Europe, and ensuring the respect of democratic principles of local and regional self-government, and in particular the principle of subsidiarity, both at European and national level.

It is also natural that our two institutions share a great potential for cooperation and creating synergies in pursuing these common objectives. Our cooperation agreement signed in 2005 became the first attempt to formalise our working relations and set up a framework for joining our forces more effectively for the benefit of local regional authorities.

Today, four years later, the time has come to renew this commitment, to take stock of our cooperation experience, and to update the modalities of our relationship in order to be able to cooperate more and better.

First of all, the new agreement recognises the leading role of the Presidents of our two institutions, and gives them the task of defining policy orientation and fixing cooperation priorities during their annual bipartite meetings. In this mission, they will be assisted by the respective Secretaries General.

For its part, the Contact Group “Congress/Committee of the Regions”, will take the responsibility of establishing a work programme, based on the priorities fixed by the Presidents, and can add more specific activities in order to meet new needs. To give the Presidency of the Group the possibility of implementing this work programme more effectively, we felt the need of extending the term of reference of the Presidency to two years.

However, in practical terms, our cooperation will continue to be carried out through our respective committees, commissions and working groups, and here I see a real potential for creating further productive synergies in the areas such as, for example, cross-border cooperation, regions with legislative powers or the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. Of course, there are many more areas in which our cooperation can be increased and strengthened further.

The revised agreement also takes into account the guidelines of the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and the Council of Europe, signed on 23 May 2007.  In this spirit, the agreement reaffirms the principle of complementarity between the Congress and the Committee of the Regions and the respect for each other’s competences and nature. Our purpose is to bring about joint projects, within which the leading role can be taken by one of the two institutions on the basis of their specific experience. 

I strongly believe that these novelties will allow us to pursue the path already followed so far more effectively, and to find common responses to the existing and new challenges, presented for example by the Lisbon Treaty. It is also my conviction that one of the keys to successful European integration is in networking, and this new agreement further consolidates one such institutional network and partnership between the Congress and the Committee of the Regions.

We shall continue working together for the benefit of our communities, of European cities and regions, and I, for one, look forward to it with great enthusiasm.

Thank you.