3rd General Meeting of the

National Associations of local and regional authorities

Strasbourg, 16 September 2010

Closing speech by Ian MICALLEF,

President a.i. of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Council of Europe

Dear colleagues,

We had a very productive day of interesting and constructive discussions, and I wish to thank you for your active participation and your valuable contribution to our work.

The main objective of this meeting was to hear your opinion on the Congress’ reform and to shape, together with you, a future Congress – Congress that is more effective, more visible and more relevant to our citizens.

Your input has been subject to a thorough analysis by our rapporteurs and will be further discussed first by the Congress Bureau meeting tomorrow, and then during the 19th Session of the Congress in October. But several main conclusions can be drawn already today.

First of all, it is clear that reform proposals received broad support from national associations. Even though your opinions on specific reform proposals may vary – the number and size of committees that the Congress should have, for example – the need for reform to refocus our mission and to adapt our structures and working methods was highlighted throughout your contributions. You have also expressed your wish for ensuring a strong follow-up to the Congress’ recommendations. This means that we are on the right track.

The second conclusion is that the reform should result in greater involvement of national associations in the work of the Congress, regular dialogue and better interaction between the Congress and associations. I was pleased to hear your appreciation of and support for the initiative to hold consultation meetings such as the one today, and to seek the associations’ input into the Congress’ priorities. This was the reason why we put in place this consultation mechanism almost five years ago, and this is the reason why we should maintain it.

We received many interesting proposals on how this mechanism could be developed further, and we will be looking into the possibilities of implementing them within the current reform process, in order to bring us – the Congress and national associations – closer together in our action. The overall wish is for such consultations to become more frequent and direct, especially in the forming of national delegations to the Congress. Several delegations called for greater transparency in the Congress’ work and improved access to Congress documents.

I would like to stress in particular the point made by the Latvian delegation, which I find extremely important: that the Congress action needs active members of the Congress to be effective, and that the reform is all about the members’ ownership of the Congress and its activities, and their active participation.

We have also noted special wishes such as, for example, that the Congress should give particular attention to the specificity of local intermediate authorities and increase opportunities for co-operation with this level, including through involvement of the Conference of European Local Intermediate Authorities.

In a similar vein, you are asking us to step up co-operation with the Committee of the Regions of the European Union and European associations of local government, such the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (whose Secretary General, Mr Frederic Vallier, I should add, made a very pertinent statement today). I can assure you that our wishes here fully coincide, and that building strong partnerships in the European landscape has always been and will remain a Congress priority.

Third, we appreciate very much your views on the Congress’ mission and priorities. I would highlight several main points in this regard:

-           a greater emphasis on the application of the subsidiarity principle as the prerequisite of building a Europe close to citizens;

-           including the development of multi-level governance among the Congress’ priorities;

-           a broader inclusion of the human rights element in the Congress’ activities, not limiting it to monitoring alone; and finally

-           distinguishing between the control and monitoring function of the Congress and its action to develop practical co-operation in strengthening local and regional democracy, which means promoting good governance and cross-border co-operation and including “best practice at local and regional level in accordance with relevance to citizens” in the Congress’ mission, next to monitoring and election observation.

Finally, we appreciate your support for a strengthened Congress Bureau with a clarified mandate, and our proposal for a new ad hoc body to replace the Standing Committee, to be known as the Statutory Forum. I agree that its role should be clearly defined.

Of course, all these proposals have to be taken into account against the background of the resources available to the Congress which, are unfortunately quite limited. I can assure you that we will continue to work with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the Secretary General of this Organisation in order to find the best possible solution to this problem, which must be seen in the context of the overall budgetary situation of the Council of Europe. But in the meantime, we must fix our priorities and plan our activities having in mind the resources at hand.

Dear colleagues,

These are, in broad strokes, the main conclusions that I would like to draw from our exchanges today. Clearly, your numerous proposals for improving the mechanism of our co-operation echo many of the 13 points identified for the first time in 2006, some of which could and should be put back on the table. Enhancing our co-operation is the unchanging objective of these meetings, and as someone who witnessed this process over the past five years, I must say that we are getting better at it. Your proposals are becoming more pertinent, and so will be – I am sure of it – our follow-up to them.

Once again, thank you for your contribution. The job now is to put it into practice, and this is our common job. Let’s get down to it, and let’s get it done.

Thank you.