Assembly of European Regions - General Assembly
Istanbul, Turkey, 11-12 November 2010
Speech by Andreas Kiefer, Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe
Madam President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you, Madam President, on your re-election to this important position.
I am confident that during this new term of your Presidency, our two institutions, the Assembly of European Regions and the Council of Europe Congress – which are already enjoying excellent relations – will become even closer. I am drawing this confidence also from your speech to Congress members just two weeks ago, when we had the pleasure of welcoming you to our 19th Session in Strasbourg.
My congratulations also go to the elected Vice-Presidents, and the Assembly’s Bureau, with the wishes of every success in your responsibilities at the helm of AER. Our good co-operation spans twenty-five years, indeed the twenty-five years of the existence of this Assembly. And we are ready to touch new grounds with you.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure for me to address you today on behalf of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and I convey the greetings of the Congress President, Keith Whitmore, and of the President of the Chamber of Regions, Herwig van Staa. It is my particular pleasure to see our past president, Yavuz Mildon, today among the participants of this General Assembly. I note that your President, Mrs. Sabban, and the newly elected President of your Committee on Culture, Education and Youth, Hande Bozatli, Istanbul (TR) are also members of the Congress: a good basis for cooperation and synergies.
This partnership was again reaffirmed this year, first during the celebration of your 25th anniversary in Brussels in June, in which our Vice-President Knud Andersen participated on behalf of the Congress, then during our 19th Session in Strasbourg in October, when your President Madame Michele Sabban addressed the Congress.
The AER and the Congress share the same strategic goals and principles, the same vision of a grassroots Europe. Much as your Assembly, we recognise the regions as key partners in the European project, and our work on promoting regionalisation and regional autonomy on our continent offers great possibilities for co-operation and synergies.
Both AER and the Congress had their leadership renewed this year, turning over a new page in their history. However, our elections last October took place in a broader context of the Congress’ reform, which is in itself part of a larger reform of the Council of Europe as a whole.
The objective of our reform process is to refocus political priorities on the core mission of the Congress, better target our activities on the issues of direct concern to local and regional communities, and increase their impact through a more effective follow-up to the implementation of Congress recommendations, and through a more regular dialogue with national and territorial authorities. The overall aim of the reform is to make the Congress more relevant to the expectations of European citizens and communities and to sharpen the profile as the lighthouse and reference point for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
The first tangible result of this process has been a considerable increase in our activities to monitor the situation of local and regional democracy in Europe. This year, fifteen monitoring missions have been scheduled to member states – three times more than in 2009 – and most of them have already been carried out.
Also as part of the reform, the Congress adopted new rules of procedure for monitoring local and regional democracy, which enlarged the scope of this exercise by adding human rights and the Reference Framework for Regional Democracy as elements to be looked at. Implementation of human rights is a joint responsibility of member states, regional and local authorities.
The reform of the Council of Europe will mean concentration on less issues – on the organisation’s core values and tasks – but doing these better and with more impact. Human rights is one of them. We want to translate this abstract term into concrete action at local and regional levels.
Many local and regional authorities are not fully aware of their important contribution to safeguarding human rights by a large variety of activities they are performing. A lot has still to be done. In raising awareness, in exchange of experiences and good practices and in taking ownership for human rights by our regions: by their governments, their parliaments and assemblies, by their administrations and by civil society at local and regional level. I invite you, the AER and all your member regions, to join forces in this ambitious project, which the Congress launched in 2010.
The Congress, of course, also hopes that in those countries where the regional level does not yet exist, the Reference Framework for Regional Democracy – adopted by Council of Europe Ministers for local and regional government - may bring about the "regional desire" to establish this kind of intermediate structure which brings power and the citizen closer together. This would be of direct relevance to the activities of AER and we shall cooperate in this field as well.
The reform of the Congress also implies a strengthened dialogue with member states, which we entertain both through direct exchanges with national governments and through exchanges within the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers as well as its Committee on Local and Regional Democracy, CDLR, and its working groups.
AER is an important ally of the Congress in this respect. Your Assembly has been following closely the work done within the Council of Europe at the intergovernmental level, and we very much appreciate the support of Congress positions there.
We must not forget that within this framework, the Congress holds discussions with governmental representatives of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe on a regular basis. This gives us a privileged role in the institutional architecture of the Council of Europe, and the support of and close cooperation with the AER in this matter is very important to us.
What we need today is a new approach to the dialogue with national governments, the dialogue that must begin first and foremost within the member states themselves, in their national capitals.
Our action in Strasbourg is but a final touch on the positions that have already been taken back home, and this is where the members of both our institutions must join their forces, working together to foster their partnership with central authorities.
This is also the level where our regional politicians have the most influence and can exercise it most effectively. This is why the role of AER in this dialogue in support of the Council of Europe action is essential.
How do we want to do this? In Strasbourg, our secretariats have to identify the dossiers that are of special interest for us: for example the inclusion of regional representatives in member states delegations to bodies of the Council of Europe. I do not mean the Congress, but the intergovernmental sector. Here the EU can serve as an example. German, Belgian, Austrian, Italian, Spanish, and one Finnish regions have members in delegations to Council working parties and Commission committees. In the Council of Europe this is practiced by Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Germany – and the Belgian delegation often consists only of representatives of the regions and the communities. It would be of great support for the Congress and the regional issue as such, if this examples was followed by other countries.
Furthermore Council of Europe member states are invited to establish a dialogue between the different actors in Council of Europe bodies: Foreign ministries, ministries for local and regional government, Congress, Parliamentary Assembly. We would be happy to include the contacts of AER representatives who are affiliated with the Congress in this exercise.
Last but not least, I should also mention our work in the field of interregional co-operation. Although under the current reform, and as part of new Congress priorities, our activities in specific co-operation areas will be refocused and streamlined, we must maintain our support to the initiatives for new cross-border regional groupings. With the adoption of the 3rd Protocol to the Madrid Convention on transfrontier co-operation in November 2009, this process should now be made easier for regions of both EU and non-EU countries.
In this regard, we are pleased to see the continued involvement of AER in developing regional co-operation in the Black Sea basin, and the holding of your General Assembly here in Istanbul this year is resounding proof of it. We hope that this axis of AER activities will lead to greater synergies between your Assembly and the Black Sea Euroregion, a platform for practical co-operation between regions and municipalities in this geographical zone, launched by the Congress in 2008.
But more generally, and as your Secretary General Klaus Klipp has suggested at a meeting of the Congress Bureau this year, AER could represent an important bridge to relay the knowledge of the Congress and its work to European regions, in particular in the framework of its specialised committees.
We share common goals and principles, and AER is in a perfect position to channel Congress and Council of Europe action to regional communities, which would allow for the implementation of our recommendations and proposals.
In this regard, we must also strengthen relations between Heads of national delegations to the Congress and the AER. Finally, both our Secretariats, which are now in regular contact with each other, could benefit from greater involvement in joint projects.
This will also correspond to the objectives of the Congress’ reform. We in the Congress have set ambitious goals for ourselves, but we cannot achieve them alone. Building partnerships and their networks is an effective means for reaching our objectives. This is why developing closer co-operation and more result-oriented synergies with European associations of local and regional authorities, such as AER, will remain one of the key aspects the Congress’ work.
The Assembly already has observer status with the Congress; many of your member regions have their representatives in our regional Chamber, and we must use these opportunities to move our partnership further.
This also fully corresponds to the objectives of our reform, whose next step will be to improve the transparency of the Congress’ work, in particular its relationship with observer organisations and other partners. This greater transparency will mean better access to Congress documents and meetings, which, I am sure, will be of direct benefit to your members. We could also envisage a more regular participation of our representatives in the meetings of each other’s Bureaus.
We must also seek to make our co-operation more concrete and project-oriented. One evident example where our synergies can produce concrete results is the current Council of Europe action with regard to the Roma population on our continent. On 20 October, the Council of Europe organised a High-Level Meeting in Strasbourg, during which representatives of European states pledged to work together to improve the situation of Roma.
However, the participants stressed that this action will be successful only through concerted efforts at European, national and territorial level, and only if it is implemented in regional and local communities. Many representatives spoke of the failure of national initiatives in favour of Roma because they failed at local level. They highlighted the need for proactive approaches and effective implementation mechanisms in regional and local communities, and a more vigorous engagement of regional and local authorities.
This is where our co-operation can be crucial, and I wish to thank your Assembly and its leadership for their will and commitment to work with the Congress in this matter. More specifically, we could work together to provide the framework for training local mediators on Roma issues, and to establish a mechanism for collecting and sharing best practices at regional and local level concerning the Roma situation. The Congress is currently preparing more detailed proposals for action, which would only benefit from synergies with AER.
The High-Level Meeting in Strasbourg proved the political will of the community of European states to make a difference. It is up to us, the community of regional and local authorities, to make sure that their initiatives are a success on the ground.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In conclusion, using this occasion, I would like to congratulate you and your Assembly on its twenty-fifth anniversary, and to reiterate the words spoken in Brussels in June:
Let us delve deeper to explore our potential for co-operation – for the benefit of our citizens, for the benefit of our regions, strong regions for a strong Europe. The first twenty-five years have shown clear success of our joint action, and we in the Congress look forward to strengthening and expanding it in the future.
Thank you.