Speech by Gudrun Mosler-Törnström, President of the Chamber of Regions and Vice-President of the Bureau of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe
Brussels, 9 July 2015
Dear Presidents, Colleagues,
I would like to thank you for inviting me to the meeting of the Standing Committee. After having participated in the General Assembly in Santiago last October - also in my other capacity as Vice-President of the regional Parliament of Salzburg - I am happy to be back and share with you reflections about future co-operation with the Congress.
It is the logic of the functioning of CALRE to be the forum of regional Parliaments of the European Union and to liaise at national, European and inter-regional levels. This rationale is also reflected in the annual declarations since its establishment in 1997.
Achievements
The Treaties of Nice and Lisbon show that CALRE and the regions with legislative powers have achieved a lot. The regional parliaments are now in the phase of implementing these achievements and co-operating with their respective regional and national governments as well as national Parliaments, especially their second chambers, in the subsidiarity assessment and the analysis of proposed European Union legislation.
Challenges
Our citizens expect political responses and concrete action in order to address and solve problems and in order to safeguard good and sustainable living conditions.
What citizens expect from the regional governments and parliaments are policies and action in the areas of employment, housing, healthcare, education, environment, to mention just a few. Much of these have a European Union dimension!
But citizens also expect regional policies and action in fundamental areas of living together – and this concerns the work of the Congress: the functioning of democratic institutions, good governance, parliaments and governments free from corruption, gender equality and better representation of women in politics, promotion of good legislation and practice in order to respect human rights, anti-discrimination and anti-radicalisation, to name just the most relevant.
The Congress focuses on the regional dimension of democracy, rule of law and human rights. In Strasbourg, the Congress sits at the table with Member States’ governments to discuss these issues and has excellent relations with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. We also work directly with national governments this is the basis for complementary, mutually beneficial work with CALRE, which helps to avoid a waste of energy and resources through competition.
Areas for co-operation
Since the signature of the co-operation agreement between the Congress and CALRE in 2010, our representatives held annual meetings at different levels. However, we did not implement concrete joint activities. Furthermore, the Congress expected from CALRE, at least it had hoped for, more involvement in its institutional work by getting involved members of your regional parliaments who are also members of the Congress. I refer to the on-going work of the Governance Committee and the reports on conditions of office of local and regional elected representatives, on developments in regionalisation in member States of the Council of Europe, on preventing corruption/promoting public ethics at local and regional levels and on criteria for standing for local and regional elections (which was adopted during the March Session).
I refer to our work on citizen participation, and on the role of women in politics or on e-government. These are all issues of concern and interest for the regions with legislative powers and their parliaments. I asked myself the question whether and why these are not relevant enough for CALRE and its member regions to get more deeply involved. I would be very interested in having your views on this focused approach that the Congress practises.
The Congress respects the vocation of CALRE as a network of EU regions focusing on EU matters, policies and legislation. We should, however, not forget that all EU member States are also member States of the Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe focuses on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Policies and legislation in these fields are often prepared by the executives (governments) who are represented in intergovernmental structures. The big advantage of the Congress for the regions with legislative powers is that the majority of its regional members come from regional parliaments and not from regional governments. I would like to draw your attention to this very fact of possible influence at European institutional level which is by far not exploited.
The Congress stands ready to co-operate in its fields of excellence. We are also happy to help re-establishing the links of CALRE with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Reflections
In our reflections about a common action plan, we are taking stock of the role of the different partners. The Committee of the Regions and the Congress as European institutions comprise individually assigned persons. In the European associations of regions these are represented partly by governments, partly by parliaments or have a mixed representation of politicians and civil servants. I can mention for example the Conference of regions with Legislative Power (REGLEG), the Assembly of European Regions (AER), the Assembly of European Border Regions (AEBR) and the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR).
In order to co-operate, we, the two European institutions and the associations of regions, need to know each other and also know what we are willing and able to do or not.
So, what are their specificities, their unique selling positions? But also, what are their needs? In this context: can the Congress and the Committee of the Regions provide a kind of technical backbone to enable these networks to focus more on their thematic work?
It seems that some of these associations have reduced their political activities and focus more on the implementation of European projects funded by the European Union. Some work at civil servants level and are useful for the functioning and networking without a an immediate significant political visibility, as it was during the institutional work of the European Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference preparing the latest EU Treaty revisions.
The Congress is happy to work with CALRE members on common political issues as outlined before. We are interested to introduce the needs and proposals of the regions with legislative powers in European Conventions and action plans established by the Council of Europe.