REPORT ON THE EUROPEAN CHARTER OF REGIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT - CPR (4) 4 II Part II

Rapporteur
Peter RABE, Germany

 In June 1993, the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe organised a Conference in Geneva on "Regionalisation in Europe: Evaluation and Perspectives", at the invitation of the Republic and Canton of Geneva.

The revival of regionalism in Europe was further boosted by the 1st Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe (Vienna, 1993), which called for the setting up of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. That request was granted almost immediately by the Committee of Ministers, which, in January 1994, voted Statutory Resolution (94) 3 setting up the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe as a statutory body comprising two chambers, one of which was the Chamber of Regions. Particular note should be taken of transitional provision no. 1, which reads as follows: "On a temporary basis, states which do not possess regional authorities, that is authorities of a level immediately below national governmental level which have their own attributions and elected organs, may appoint to the Chamber of Regions [...]". It thus aims to develop regionalisation in countries which do not (yet) have regional authorities. This idea is contained in the Charter itself (cf. Article 23).

The Congress then set up a Working Group on Regionalisation in Central and Eastern Europe to examine trends and developments in this field in central and eastern Europe.

Even in traditionally centralised States such as France, regions are increasingly a focus of discussion. It is not necessary to go back as far as François Mitterrand, who wrote in 1980 that "France needed strong, centralised government in order to build itself up. It now needs decentralised authorities in order to avoid disintegration."

More recently, on 25 March 1997, André Fontaine published an article in Le Monde entitled "The Nation State Caught in the Crossfire", in which he discussed the weakness of the nation state in the face of "the crossfire of globalisation, Europe and regionalisation". Stressing the powerful trend towards regionalisation, he pointed out that clinging to a preconceived idea of the nation state might have the effect of turning the latter into a kind of museum, putting France on a path to "discouragement and decline". Paragraph 8 of the Preamble to the Charter contains a clear statement concerning the regions loyalty towards the State to which they belong, "with respect for its sovereignty and territorial integrity". The Charter therefore intends in no way to prepare the ground for separatist tendencies.

The regional issue is also on the forefront of discussions in certain member States. I would like to mention three of them:

-in Italy, a thorough reform of the constitution is under way, for which a bi-cameral committee of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate is preparing the ground. It is expected that this reform will seriously reinforce the competence of the regions, e.g. by granting all of them real legislative power in their field of competence;

- in Poland, parliamentary discussions were under way concerning the subject of regionalisation. The structure of the 49 voivodships might be reduced to 23, 17 or 12 regions. This seems also to be important in order to enable those States that want to join the European Union in a near future, to benefit in good conditions from community regional aid programmes;

- in the Russian Federation, the debate on the structures of the federal States is crucial for the future of this country as a whole, as has recently been pointed out1. The European Charter could and should be a contribution and a stabilising factor in order to give support to this process.

Following the Geneva Conference in 1993 and its final declaration, the new Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, at its first session in June 1994, adopted Resolution No. 8 in which it invited the Chamber of Regions "to draw up a `European Charter of Regional Autonomy' along the lines of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, in co-operation with the Parliamentary Assembly."

It is therefore obvious, right from the start of the procedure, that the Charter of Regional Self-Government is complementary to the European Charter of Local Self-Government adopted in 1985. The existence of two conventions will reinforce the importance of both local and regional democracy in our continent. The repeated consultation with the Chamber of Local Authorities and with many local government associations aims at ensuring that this will function in practice.

Both the draft recommendation (paragraph 7) and the Preamble of the Charter (paragraph 5) express this view. Furthermore, the Preamble insists in paragraphs 4 and 6 on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle is based on different sources, including Recommendation No R (95) 19 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe as well as the European Union's Maastricht Treaty. However, in the latter, its application is limited to the relations between the European Union and its member States. The draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government sees this principle in a wider context. It is understood to include the principle of internal subsidiarity, applicable inside each State, not only between the central State and the regions, but also in the relations between the regions themselves and the local authorities on their territory.

These relations between the two Chambers and the relations between the regions and local authorities are not only referred to in the Preamble; they are part of the text of the Charter itself (see Article 7, in particular paragraphs 1 and 2). Once Russia will have ratified this new Charter, it will also help to resolve some internal conflicts concerning local democracy by the application of Article 7, as is pointed out in the report on local and regional democracy in the Russian Federation that will be presented to the same session of the Congress.

In 1994 the Bureau of the Congress set up a working group on the "European Charter of Regional Self Government". Several meetings were held in this context, some of which were attended by eminent lawyers and other regionalisation experts whom the working group wished to consult. Furthermore, at the invitation of the Government of Lower Saxony (Germany), a first draft of the text of the Charter was presented to the public on the occasion of a Hearing held in Hannover on 22 March 1996.

Until 1996, the group was chaired by Claude Haegi, President of the Chamber of Regions, who became President of the CLRAE in June 1996. After the 3rd session, the group was chaired by Llibert Cuatrecasas, Minister for External Relations of Catalonia (Spain) and Vice-President of the Congress. The Vice-Chair was Leon Kieres, who is also Vice-President of the Chamber of Regions. Peter Rabe, member of the Diet of Lower Saxony (Germany) and equally Vice-President of the Chamber of Regions, was appointed Rapporteur. Two experts have made a considerable contribution to the success of the work: Professors Nicolas Levrat, Master for Lecturing and Research at the University of Geneva, and Philippe De Bruycker, Director at the Public Law Centre at the Free University of Brussels. Dr Gander Hedtkamp (Munich), Director of the Osteuropa Institut, provided a valuable input to the section relating to the funding of regions. For the Hannover Hearing and the next stage in the work, the Bureau decided to ask the Chamber of Local Authorities to give its opinion on the draft text. This task was initially entrusted to Mr Diego Scacchi, Mayor of Locarno (Switzerland) and, after the 3rd session, to Yvette Jaggi, Mayor of Lausanne (Switzerland), who was replaced when necessary by Karl-Christian Zahn, Mayor of Dorsten (Germany).

Right from the beginning, and in accordance with the mandate given by Resolution No. 8 (1994), representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly have been invited to participate in our work. We have thus benefited from the co-operation of Mr Francesco Parisi, Chairman of the Assembly's Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities, of Mr Pere Grau, and of Mr Joao Bosco Mota Amaral, the latter's status being first that of member of the Congress, and later that of member of the Assembly. In the light of the work of the rapporteur (Mr Mota Amaral), the Assembly voted on 19 March 1997 a provisional opinion in Resolution 1118 (1997) taking a very positive view of the work being done while reserving the option of adopting an opinion on the final text to be adopted by the Congress.

First of all, the experts' report was submitted for examination by a group of consultants who met in Strasbourg on 3 April 1995. The report, amended to incorporate the consultants' additions and observations, was submitted to the working group of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe in Paris on 20 June 1995. The members of the working group and several observers examined the first draft report, which did not propose a text for a European Charter, but sought to expound a number of politically sensitive and methodologically important questions in the fields which, in the experts' opinion, should be covered by the draft Charter.

The members of the working group approved the report submitted by the experts, including the proposed structure of the draft Charter. They commissioned the same experts to produce what was called a "preliminary draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government".

The group subsequently met three times (in Paris in November 1995, in Geneva in December 1995 and finally in Paris in January 1996) to approve an initial draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government. The draft was then examined at a public hearing held in Hannover on 22 March 1996, following which the experts made a few final amendments to the draft. Following those discussions, the Chamber of Regions approved the draft Charter which had been submitted for opinion to the Chamber of Local Authorities on 3 July 1996. The Standing Committee of the Congress adopted the text of the Charter by Resolution 37 (1996) as an interim text which would be subject to wide-ranging consultation during the recess. Recommendation 22 (1996), which was adopted at the same time, invited the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of the Regions to give their opinions on the text.

The Parliamentary Assembly gave its opinion referred to above, on the basis of the report by Joao Bosco Mota Amaral [Doc 7771 rev.]. The President of the Committee of the Regions, Pasqual Maragall i Mira, did not think that the Committee of the Regions could hold a discussion on the draft Charter. However, he was sure that "the efforts [of the Congress] will bear fruit and will help further the cause of regionalism in Europe".

The CEMR communicated its opinion to the President of the Congress on 25 February 1997 [Doc. CPR/GT/RSG (3) 8]. It supported regionalisation, while emphasising the principle of subsidiarity and the need fully to observe the provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The CEMR also encouraged its national sections to send their opinions directly to the CLRAE, and a large number did so. A comprehensive list of the opinions and contributions received appears in Appendix to this report.

The Assembly of European Regions adopted a resolution on the draft Charter in Basel on 4 December 1996, along with a "Declaration on Regionalism in Europe" [CPR/GT/RSG (3) 3]. The AER declared its support for the draft Charter, saying that "a Council of Europe European Charter of Regional Self-Government would be an important milestone in the continuing development of regionalism in Europe". The AER also presented a series of more detailed comments.

The CLRAE received various contributions from associations, individual regions and prominent figures in the debate (see Appendix). One example was the paper submitted by Vasilyi Likhachev (Russian Federation), President of the Assembly of Tatarstan, Vice-President of the Federation Council and member of the Congress working group [CPR/GT/RSG (3) 7]. The paper was based on extensive consultation of the 89 "subjects" of the Russian Federation and gave a positive assessment of the draft text.

The working group felt that the consultation of all the European regions envisaged in paragraph 10.ii of Resolution 37 should be considered as having been carried out through the consultation of the Chamber of Regions, the Assembly of European Regions and the Council of European Municipalities and Regions. However, the group also took into consideration the other contributions received.

At the invitation of three Vice-Presidents of the Congress, three public hearings were also held during the 1996/1997 recess:

-on 18 October 1996 in Barcelona, at the invitation of Llibert Cuatrecasas, for Spanish regions and scientists;
-on 27 and 28 February 1997 in Florence, at the invitation of Patrizia Dini, for Italian regions and local authorities and scientists from a number of countries;
-on 10 March 1997 in Wroclaw, at the invitation of Leon Kieres, for Polish regions, parliamentarians and scientists, along with representatives of the countries of central and eastern Europe.

All three hearings generated in-depth discussion on the draft Charter, which was followed in Italy by official statements of their position by the country's regions collectively and, in some cases, individually. The hearings therefore made a significant contribution to the work of the Congress.
The preliminary draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government to which this explanatory report refers is based furthermore on:

-the first expert report;
-the minutes of the working group's meetings;
-the documents and observations submitted to the authors by working group members;
-the European Charter of Local Self-Government;
-the CLRAE Statutory Resolution and Charter;
-the European Parliament Community Charter for Regionalization;
-Council of Europe member States' legislation on regional matters;
-numerous Council of Europe reports published in the "Local and Regional Authorities in Europe" series;
-the documents presented at the Conference on Regionalisation in Europe: Evaluation and Perspectives (Geneva, 1993);
- the relevant legal literature;
-Resolution 1118 of the Parliamentary Assembly and the report by Mr Mota Amaral;
-the opinions of the CEMR and the AER;
-the opinions and proposals received from associations, regions, CLRAE delegates, scientific experts and a number of governmental bodies (a list of which may be found in Appendix).

The group approached its task by attempting to draw up a text which could become a Council of Europe convention, along the lines of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1996 and which to date is in force in 23 Council of Europe member states. The group also drew on several texts from NGOs and the European Parliament, as well as on the work carried out by the CDLR, in particular Recommendation R (95) 19 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity, adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 12 October 1995. It also took into account the parts of the Maastricht Treaty relating to subsidiarity. Certain provisions contained in the Statutory Resolution and Charter of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe were taken into account.

The text of the draft Charter as it stands offers essential elements for the definition of a region, and in particular the foundation of regional self-government, regional self-government itself and regional attributions and powers, although the latter are not enumerated. It will be the responsibility of states to specify the categories of regions to which the Charter will apply (Article 25 of the text).

The authors' aim was to present a text which would be widely acceptable among the Council of Europe member states, whatever their regional configuration, covering both federal regimes and the county system of the Nordic countries and the UK and Ireland. A special provision has been included for states which would like to embark upon a process of regionalisation and the authors hope that this provision will be of particular relevance to certain countries in central and eastern Europe. Such states would have the opportunity of undertaking to bring their legislation in conformity with the principles of the Charter within a period of ten years. A control mechanism has also been proposed which would entail the drafting of regular reports (every five years). These reports would initially be examined by the Congress, which would then transmit them, together with its observations, to the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers (Article 22).

The preliminary draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government incorporates all the matters of substance which the working group had earlier decided should be contained in the definition of regional self-government. The articles are, as far as possible, applicable to all European States (with the exception of those of a size which makes the existence of regions somewhat unrealistic). However, where a uniform solution does not seem applicable to all European States, Article 20 provides for the possibility of accepting only some of the obligations set out in the Charter.

Where the structure of the draft is concerned, ie, the ordering of the articles are arranged, the authors have endeavoured to adopt a logical pattern making clear the different components of regional self-government and the relations between them.

Before the 3rd session, the preliminary draft text was finalised at the working group's meeting on 30 April 1996. The working group met three times during the recess: on 19 October 1996 in Barcelona (Spain), 11 March 1997 in Wroclaw (Poland) and 17 and 18 April 1997 in Paris. The text finalised at the meeting in Paris will now be submitted to the 4th session of the Congress in June 1997. First, the Chamber of Local Authorities is invited to give its opinion, following which a draft Recommendation and a draft Resolution would be approved by the Chamber of Regions before being adopted by the Congress itself.

It is our hope that such a text, once adopted, would be an integral part of the basic texts of the Council of Europe in the favour of guaranteeing the principle of "democratic security" developed at the Council of Europe's Vienna Summit in 1993. Ten years after its entry into force, the European Charter of Local Self-Government, to which the present draft Charter is considered as being a necessary and useful complement or "pendant", has been ratified by 23 States and signed by 8 others. It is therefore an essential component of what has been recently suggested to become, at the horizon of the Council of Europe's 50th anniversary in 1999, the "Magna Charta" of democratic security, based on the three major principles of the Council of Europe, i.e. pluralistic democracy, human rights and the preeminence of law. We hope that the governments will give this initiative the political go-ahead at the 2nd Summit to be held in Strasbourg in October this year. It is expected that the President of the Congress will present this project to the Summit.

A draft explanatory report on the Charter of Regional Self-Government appears as Addendum to the present report. It illustrates the text of the draft Charter. In the tradition of the Council of Europe, such an explanatory report is adopted by the Committee of Ministers at the same time as a convention. The text that has already been discussed in the Working Group is therefore intended to facilitate the Committee of Ministers' work, when it would, hopefully, proceed to the adoption of the Charter.

Following the final consultation with the Chamber of Local Authorities, the Congress will be able to adopt, at its fourth Session in 1997, the finalised text appended to the draft Recommendation, which will then be submitted to the Committee of Ministers in the hope that the text, which will have been the subject of extensive consultations, will result in a new Council of Europe convention.

APPENDIX

Documents that have been used by the Working Group for the new wording of the draft European Charter of Regional Self-government
since the 3rd Plenary Session (Resolution 37 (1996)) :

non-paper Amendment proposed by Jo Leinen (Germany)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 1 Amendment proposed by Risto Koivisto (Finland)
SEM/BARC (3) PV 1 prov Summary of Proceedings - Round Table with representatives of institutes of the Public Administration and Spanish regions
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 2 Explanations relating to regional funding by Prof Günter Hedtkamp (Germany)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 3 Documents of the AER adopted at the Basel Summit, on 4.12.1997
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 5 Reply by the President of the Committee of the Regions
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 7 conf Comments by Mr Likhachev (Russian Federation)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 8 CEMR opinion
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 9 Comments by the Swiss delegation to the CLRAE
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 10 Comments by the Association of Austrian Cities and Towns
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 11 conf Comments by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 12 Tuscany Region (Italy)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 13 Regional Council of the Marches (Italy)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 14 Emilia-Romagna (Italy)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 16 Comments by the German Association of Counties
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 17 Comments by the Federal Association of National Local Authorities Associations (Germany)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 18 conf Provisional summary of debates of the Florence Hearing
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 20 Comments by the Association of Finnish Local Authorities
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 21 Comments by the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 22 Comments by the Association of Austrian Municipalities
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 23 Comments by the Association of County Councils in Denmark
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 24 rev Comments by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 25 Comments by the Federation of Swedish County Councils
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 27 Observation by the Liaison Office of the Austrian "Bundesländer"
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 28 Comments by the Institute of Public Affairs of Warsaw (Poland)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 29 Comments by Prof. Zyta Gilowska (Poland)
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 30 Proposed amendments tabled by Mr Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe, President of the CLRAE Chamber of Regions
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 34 Information - Assembly of European Regions
CPR/GT/RSG (3) 35 Observations by Mr Frantisek Dohnal, President of the Czech delegation to the CLRAE
Doc 7771 revised Report by the Parliamentary Assembly (Mr Mota Amaral, Rapporteur) on the draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government
Res 1118 (1997) Resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly on the CLRAE preliminary draft Charter of Regional Self-Government

1 Interview with Jacques Sapir in Le Monde, 19 April 1997