Seminar on the prospects of cooperation between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Council of Europe

Rabat, Morocco, 22-23 February 2010

Speech by Ian Micallef, acting President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Mr Executive Director,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear colleagues,

It is a great honour for me to address today this important seminar, organised at a time when the Euro-Mediterranean process is acquiring a new dimension in our political architecture.

This process of bringing Europe and the southern rim of the Mediterranean together to face common economic and social challenges has been gaining momentum for some time, and has seen some important developments in recent years. I am referring to the creation of the Union for the Mediterranean in July 2008 and the launching, last month, of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly, ARLEM, representing the territorial dimension of this Union, as a platform for political dialogue and cooperation at local and regional level.

These initiatives are born out of our growing conviction that the Mediterranean basin is crucial for stability and peace in Europe as a whole, and that European construction cannot be achieved without the Mediterranean. The Euro-Mediterranean process reflects the need for engaging both shores of the Mediterranean Sea in creating a common space for North-South cooperation, intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding – a space of democratic values, stability and sustainable socio-economic development.

However, the process of building this common space cannot be limited to governments alone. National development starts with local and regional communities, which should also be the main beneficiaries of development processes, and democracy is built from the grassroots. We need to involve all levels of governance in the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, much as we need to involve all actors and stakeholders – governments, parliaments, local and regional authorities, civil society and the private sector.

This is why I with to thank the organisers, the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, for this excellent initiative to bring together representatives of the different sectors of Moroccan society and the various entities of the Council of Europe, in order to look at ways of increasing cooperation with the Kingdom of Morocco as part of this Euro-Mediterranean process.

I am convinced that by reaching out to Morocco, we can reach out to the Maghreb in the broader sense, and I am pleased to see that some initial steps are already being taken – for instance, by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and its initiative of Partnership for Democracy.

The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities is another assembly of the Council of Europe, which brings together territorial elected representatives standing for more than 200,000 communities from 47 European countries. The commitment of the Congress to the Mediterranean region goes back a long way. In 1985, for example, we organised, together with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the first conference of Mediterranean Regions. Nor are we new to cooperation with Morocco. Our efforts to help local authorities in the Maghreb and the Middle East to acquire more modern and more democratic structures began  with this country, where we helped to set up a national association of local authorities.

Indeed, the Congress was instrumental in creating the National Association of Local Authorities of Morocco. We have been working to increase our cooperation with Morocco for many years, and we are looking forward to the participation of Fathallah Oualalou, Mayor of Rabat, who will be speaking later today, in next month's session of the Congress in Strasbourg.

I am confident that this seminar, and the Mayor’s participation in the Congress session, will give a boost to our renewed efforts for cooperation. For example, the Congress Bureau would be pleased to consider granting observer status to the National Association of Local Authorities of Morocco, if such a request were made. This would allow local representatives from this country to participate in the work of the Congress. In this regard, I should point out that the Union of Local Authorities in Israel (ULAI) and the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities (APLA) are both observers in the Congress, which has helped us to establish a tri-partite dialogue with local communities in the Middle East. The Arab Towns Organisation also enjoys observer status.

This would be one step on the way to engaging local authorities in Morocco in dialogue and cooperation with the Congress, but not the only one. We would certainly welcome their active participation also in the process of fostering Euro-Arab cities’ dialogue. This process was launched under the friendship and co-operation agreement between Arab and European towns, which was signed in Valencia, Spain, in 1984. Its first step was the Conference of Euro-Arab Towns organised here in Morocco, in Marrakesh in 1988. This dialogue gained a new momentum with the Euro-Arab Cities’ Forum in Dubai in February 2008, co-organised by the Congress. It was decided to hold such conferences every three years, and we hope that municipalities of Morocco, a country which was among the first to launch this dialogue, will take an active part in this process in the run-up to the next forum in 2011.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Dubai Forum revealed – or, rather, confirmed – that there is a wide range of areas where the sharing of experience and cooperation between European and Arab towns can be of great mutual benefit and can indeed make a valuable contribution to national policy-making. For example, just two months after the Forum, in April 2008, the Council of Europe North-South Centre organised the Encounters of Tangier, which focused on the issue of migration. At that meeting, the Congress presented its action aimed at improving integration and participation of people of immigrant origin in Europe’s towns, cities and regions – a matter which is certainly of direct concern to both shores of the Mediterranean, and in which local authorities must play a leading role.

In September 2008, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly held a colloquy on the management of water resources in the Mediterranean region, where the Congress represented the local and regional dimension – again, convinced of the crucial role played by territorial government structures in this matter.

I could continue with this list but it is clear that the wealth of common problems and the stakes involved call for greater Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and engagement, also at the level of local and regional communities. Today, there are several structures for it: it can be pursued directly through the Congress, through ARLEM, or through the Council of Europe North-South Centre, in which the Congress fully participate as part of its quadrilogue system. In fact, I am pleased to say that we signed an agreement to strengthen our cooperation with the Centre just a little more than one year ago, in December 2008. 

We are convinced that greater involvement of Moroccan local authorities in the activities initiated or supported by the Congress will bring about improvements in local governance and development in this country. The Congress has much to offer, and we are committed to sharing our experience and acquis in this field with our Mediterranean neighbours, including Morocco. What we need today is to develop a capacity for exchanges between European and Moroccan territorial communities, a system of experience-sharing and a way of applying this experience on the ground.

In this regard, the Congress has just set up a new working group of cities and provinces of the Euro-Mediterranean –  “DEMOMED” – to strengthen local democracy in the southern Mediterranean countries and more effectively determine our strategies with them.

First, our action must involve promoting our local-government "tool-kit" – our main reference texts, the acquis of the Congress, such as the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the European Code of conduct for the political integrity of local and regional elected representatives, or the European Urban Charter II: Manifesto for a new urbanity, to name but a few. In particular, the European Charter of Local Self-Government, this benchmark treaty for local democracy, has been inspiring models of local governance around the globe, and I am pleased to take note that it has also been subject of debate in Morocco.

This would lay down an appropriate legal framework for local communities, whereas Congress recommendations in specific fields – for example, spatial development and transport, energy use and water management, social integration and citizen participation, or intercultural dialogue – will offer tools for improving local governance.

Second, we should consider setting up structures similar to local democracy agencies in South-East Europe and South Caucasus, one of the most successful Congress initiatives. Third, we should actively promote and use more efficiently City Diplomacy and its initiatives aimed at conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. For example, initiatives aimed at providing education and training for young people is something that local authorities can implement effectively.

I would like to use this opportunity to invite the Moroccan authorities to open the doors to cooperation and dialogue and take advantage of these initiatives. The Congress, much as all the other entities of the Council of Europe, stands ready to discuss practical ways of doing so and to offer its assistance. With its pan-European dimension of 47 countries, the Congress can offer the vast experience of communities, including those that have recently and sometimes painfully experienced the transition to democracy and post-conflict reconstruction.

We believe that these proposed steps will certainly contribute to putting the first-hand experience of local and regional authorities on the ground at the service of the Euro-Mediterranean projects, to bringing our citizens closer together, and creating a common, homogenous space of local and regional democracy in the Euro-Mediterranean basin.

Europe and the southern shore of the Mediterranean have much in common: not only do they share a common history and cultural heritage, traditions of economic exchanges and migration flows – most importantly, they share a common future. At local level, the histories of our communities, of Mediterranean cities and provinces are intertwined, rich in exchanges between people from both shores, migrating in search of a new life, travelling deeper into the unknown, seafaring in a quest for new discoveries. Over the centuries, these exchanges created what I like to refer to as the “cultural unity”  of the Euro-Mediterranean region, a perfect platform for intercultural and interreligious dialogue between our communities, which, I am convinced, can help us to dialogue at national and international level, for the sake of establishing peace and stability and promoting democratic development in the basin.

We in the Council of Europe Congress are ready to begin this dialogue with the Kingdom of Morocco.

Thank you.