Standing Committee
Strasbourg, 18 June 2010
Speech by Ian Micallef, Acting President of the Congress
Dear colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was one year ago almost to the day that the Standing Committee met in Brdo, Slovenia, to discuss the very first report of Past President Halvdan Skard on the Congress’ working methods. Back then, we spoke of the need to refocus our priorities, to inject innovation in our work and to match the Congress’ resources and budget with its activities. We spoke of the need to keep monitoring as the core of our mission, and to improve monitoring mechanisms.
The meeting in Brdo was the starting point of the reform process aimed at making the Congress more efficient and more visible, more relevant to the needs of our citizens and more capable of responding to the challenges facing our communities.
Our meeting today, one year later, is as crucial for the future of the Congress as the one which launched the process back in Brdo. We have succeeded in seizing the momentum of reform, which received a major boost on the scale of the whole Council of Europe with the reform package put forward by Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland. Against this background, our own reform is not only timely – it is visionary, because it will reinforce the drive for change within the entire Organisation.
The 18th Session of the Congress in March added a new dynamic to this process. The Session increased the momentum towards the revision of our priorities and structures, re-examining the Congress’ role within the Council of Europe and re-evaluating our resources.
Already on 12 April, the Bureau held an extraordinary meeting devoted entirely to the reform of the Congress, and continued discussions during its meeting on 21 May. These reform efforts have been actively assisted by our new Secretary General, Andreas Kiefer, who took up his duties on 1 April.
The Standing Committee must move Congress reform further. Today, the Standing Committee will act on the proposals approved by the Bureau and will lay down the basis for further discussions over the summer, so that we could conclude the essential part of the reflection process and agree on priorities, structures and working methods during the 19th Session in October.
Several key provisions of the reform will need the approval of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, because they require revising the Congress’ Charter and the Statutory Resolution. On 11 May, I addressed the Ministerial Session of the Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg, and used this occasion to present our reform and to ask for the governments’ support of our efforts.
However, most of the reform proposals concern the changes that we can implement within the remit of the Congress’ own competences. They stem first and foremost from the mission of the Congress as a watchdog for local and regional self-government in Europe, a partner of national governments and a reference point for territorial democracy, notably through monitoring the European Charter of Local Self-Government.
The main objective is to bring a new dynamic to the Congress’ monitoring activities, making them more frequent, more regular, more systematic and more open to political dialogue, which will enable the Congress to fulfil its mission as a monitoring body of the Council of Europe. These activities will have to be coordinated with the other Council of Europe monitoring instruments, to ensure greater impact and tangible developments in member States.
I should recall that we have already expanded our monitoring efforts this year, by increasing three times the number of scheduled missions, compared to 2009. Since the beginning of the year, the Congress has carried out monitoring visits to Montenegro, Austria, Russia, Estonia, Turkey and Romania, and two more missions will take place before the end of June, to Malta and Serbia. With this last mission, the Congress will have completed the first monitoring cycle of all the 44 member states that have ratified the European Charter of Local Self-Government. There is also hope that this number will soon increase, with a possible ratification of the Charter by Andorra.
Moreover, in March, the Congress also decided to introduce a new priority, by adding the local and regional dimension of the human rights implementation to our monitoring activities. In doing so, we are seeking to make local and regional authorities aware of their responsibilities for implementing human rights. The respect of human rights is one of their key tasks, and we must ensure that our communities are providing the same protection to all their residents.
We are not alone in these efforts. On 1 June, Vice-President of the Institutional Committee Lars O. Molin participated in a meeting in Vienna, organised by the Fundamental Rights Agency of the EU, which brought together stakeholders in a project “Connecting rights: a joined-up governance approach to human rights implementation”.
He presented his report on the role of local and regional authorities and the Congress’ position, which was received with great interest. One of our proposals, which we voiced in the Congress’ opinion concerning the multilevel governance project of the Committee of the Regions, is to establish a triangle between the Congress, the Committee of the Regions and the Fundamental Rights Agency for strengthening the delivery of human rights at local and regional level.
But along with reinforcing and expanding our monitoring, we need to clarify the rules and procedure to be followed in carrying out this exercise, which is one of the subjects of our debates today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In refocusing our priorities, we will also need to widen the scope and impact of the observation of local and regional elections, through co-operation with other Council of Europe bodies and external partners, and through better political follow-up to Congress recommendations and resolutions. At this meeting today, we will debate a Congress strategy for election observation which proposes, in particular, to make pre-electoral missions a rule rather than an exception in our election observation exercise.
In this spirit, observation of the three latest local elections – in Armenia and Azerbaijan last year and in Georgia on 30 May this year – all included pre-electoral missions. We will hear today from Vice-President Günther Krug who headed the Congress’ observation mission to Georgia. I should also like to inform the Standing Committee that the Congress has been invited to observe regional elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October.
However, monitoring and election observation in themselves are only half of the issue. We must make sure that our action brings concrete and tangible results and real improvement of the situation. It is therefore proposed that the Congress provide post-monitoring and post-observation assistance, by organising targeted co-operation programmes which would address the major issues of concern and the specific shortcomings highlighted in our recommendations, and which would involve both national and territorial authorities. These programmes will also seek to increase their know-how and capacity for local governance and organising free and fair elections.
Last but not least, it is proposed that the Congress should streamline its thematic activities in the light of the core values of the Organisation, focusing on local and regional aspects of promoting good governance, a socially cohesive and sustainable society, and intercultural dialogue.
Such refocusing of our priorities will also mean redefining the place of the Congress within the Council of Europe and in relation to its external partners, as well as adjusting accordingly the Congress’ structures, activities and working methods, and reallocating its resources and budget. This is another subject of our discussions today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Briefly, I would like to inform you of some other major developments that have taken place since the 18th Session in March.
In May, a large Congress delegation took part in the Conference on democracy and decentralisation, organised by the Swiss Presidency of the Committee of Ministers in St Gallen. The Conference provided a forum for an in-depth discussion on the relationship between the decentralisation of power and the strengthening of democratic governance in a State.
Also in May, the Congress co-organised, together with the authorities of the Sicily Region, a major international conference on fighting corruption at local and regional level, which took place in Messina. This Conference represented a starting point for a joint European action against corruption at the level of municipalities and regions, and its results will be used to lay down the bases of a new code of good administrative practices in this area.
I should recall that last year in Brdo, we discussed ways of developing co-operation with Belarus and engaging its authorities in order to strengthen local and regional self-government in this country. Unfortunately, the Belarus’ authorities have demonstrated a lack of willingness to belong to the European democratic family, and ignored the calls from the Council of Europe, its Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress to show good will. In March, Belarus carried out two executions, in a blatant disregard for the opinion of European democracies. Since a moratorium on the death penalty in Belarus constitutes an essential condition for continuing our dialogue with this country’s authorities, the Congress’ Bureau joined the rest of the Organisation in freezing relations with Belarus and putting on hold our co-operation project. However, the observer organisations from this country will continue to be allowed to participate in our meetings.
Finally, I would like to inform you that preparations are underway for organising the next Euro-Arab Cities Forum, which will take place in Malaga, Spain, in February next year, 2011. The Steering Committee, set up at the initiative of the Congress following the Forum in Dubai in 2008, met twice to advance these preparations. The Euro-Arab dialogue and Euro-Mediterranean co-operation will remain a major axis of our activities, not least through our participation in the Regional and Local Assembly for the Euro-Mediterranean, ARLEM, which we discussed at the last Congress session in March.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The decisions which we will adopt today will bring important changes that will shape the Congress and its action for years to come, within a renewed Council of Europe. Let us be firm and show our resolve to pursue this process to its successful conclusion.
Thank you.