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Ref. CG-002 (2017)

Meeting of the Congress Monitoring Committee in Athens  

Strasbourg, 13 February 2017 - The members of the Monitoring Committee of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe will meet in Athens on 16 February 2017. Georges Patoulis, President of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE), and Michalis Angelopoulos, Vice-President of the Congress, Mayor of the Island of Samos and Head of the Greek  delegation to the Congress, will address the participants prior to the opening of the meeting by Leen Verbeek (Netherlands, SOC), Chair of the Monitoring Committee.

The meeting agenda includes several reports on the situation of local and regional democracy in Finland, Iceland, Estonia, and Malta and on the observation of elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The participants will discuss the outcome of the fact-finding mission which the Congress recently sent to Turkey to look into the detention of elected mayors and their replacement by persons appointed by the government in several municipalities.

The members of the Committee will also examine a report on the role of local authorities in dealing with migration with a view to its adoption at the plenary session of the Congress in March 2017. In September 2016 a delegation led by Jean-Claude Frécon, past-President of the Congress, visited several refugee camps in the Attica Region to examine the specific situation of Greek local and regional authorities.

Finally, the Committee members will discuss the 2016-2017 working plan on human rights at local and regional levels, and recurring questions concerning the situation of local and regional democracy in Europe. They will also examine the list of criteria for evaluating compliance with international standards and good practices for preventing the misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes at local and regional levels.

The meeting is open to the press upon prior registration: accreditation form

Venue of the meeting:

Zappeion, Athens, Greece | 09:00 to 18:00

Interpretation:

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Greek

Information:

Online file (documents, photos and videos will be made available)

Contact:

Stéphanie Poirel – [email protected]

Congress of Local and Regional Authorities

Planning, Coordination and institutional Communication Unit

Tel: +33 (0)3 90 21 48 95

Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 27 51

[email protected]

www.coe.int/congress

The Congress has two chambers, the Chamber of Local Authorities and the Chamber of Regions. It brings together 324 full and 324 substitute members representing more than 200 000 European territorial communities.

President of the Congress: Gudrun Mosler-Törnström (Austria, SOC), President of the Chamber of Local Authorities: Anders Knape (Sweden, EPP/CCE), President of the Chamber of Regions: Gunn Marit Helgesen (Norway, EPP-CCE)

Political Groups: Socialist Group (SOC), Group of the European People’s Party (EPP/CCE), Independent and Liberal Democrat Group (ILDG), European Conservatives & Reformists Group  (ECR)