European Congress on Citizenship and Twinning

Rybnik, Poland, 29 September-1 October 2011

Closing session

Speech by Keith Whitmore, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Mr President,

Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Active citizenship is of crucial importance for democratic development of our continent. It is especially so as we are entering a new era of this development – an era of participatory democracy, democracy based on active and continuous citizen participation.

A combination of factors and processes are compelling us to move towards this new model – further European integration, globalisation, a crisis of the old model and disaffection of citizens, even the economic crisis and the need for innovative solutions.

This makes the theme of this conference both apt and timely. The moment for this conference is also right: a moment of European history marked by the integration momentum and by the “awakening” of people’s activism, with citizens taking an active stand on many issues of society.

This is reflected in people’s initiatives and a prominent civil society, and facilitated to a great extent by new technologies and social networks, particularly in a young person.

These energy and activism must be channeled for the benefit of democracy and society, especially among young people, whose current disengagement gives birth to critical social movements and alert us to the existing problems.

The Congress is very much involved in the current debate on the crisis of European democracy and its future. Our contribution to this debate is based on the following approach.

First, that the way out of the crisis is by bringing power and decision-making back to its legitimate owner, the people. This means the devolution of power towards the level closest to the citizens, the level of our local and regional communities.

This means, in turn, more competences for local and regional authorities, more autonomy in political decision-making and financial autonomy for them, more democracy at the grassroots level.

Secondly, this decentralisation must lead to a new system of governance in Europe. National governments and the European institutions cannot solve all the complicated problems alone. Globalisation and today’s social networks also mean that they can no longer operate behind closed doors.

A new model calls, on the one hand, for greater transparency and accountability towards citizens and, on the other hand, for the involvement of all levels of government in the governing process.

This is why we are calling for a new system of governance – a system of multi-level governance in Europe, based on equal partnership of European, national, regional and local authorities who are masters of their own, clearly defined domains of competences. In other words, local and regional authorities today are equal players and stakeholders in democracy-building.

A special challenge is represented by getting new generations closer to European institutions to built together the Europe of the future.

Young people go very fast, they use Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, they are demonstrating to be able to make revolutions through these tools and even bring dictatorship to an end.  And now, they want to take an active role in building their own democratic institutions.

Europe takes time in building compromises through negotiations between governments; it often takes too long to develop common policy and young people, in the meanwhile, are going to react to this fact with a growing criticism.

Despite their skeptical approach toward European institutions, young people demonstrate that they enjoy and profit tremendously from being Europeans. They do so by studying abroad, around Europe: for example, the Erasmus Programme has created generations of young genuine Europeans all over Europe. With just a small budget, this programme has built bridges and networks of young professionals across Europe.

Today, local authorities have to take their responsibilities for raising new generations of Europeans based on the fundamental values of solidarity, cooperation and social inclusion. This is why citizenship initiatives must devote a special place to the youth involvement.

Our approach is that, first, local and regional authorities must create frameworks for greater citizen participation and full exercise of human rights in their communities: primarily by the access to public services for all residents, regardless of their legal status, race, gender and other conditions or disabilities.

Implementing human rights is certainly easier to do from the bottom up, leading to a nation-wide framework, than the other way round. Citizen participation goes hand in hand with further local integration and better social cohesion at the grassroots.

Setting up local and regional councils of young people where they do not exist represents a real opportunity to bridge the gap between young people on the one hand and politics and institutions on the other.

This process means including everyone, in particular minorities, foreigners and migrants, vulnerable groups, and this from their young age.

Social integration of different groups of the residents is today an integral part of a new competence for local and regional politicians, that of managing diversity in our communities that are increasingly multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual.

Finally, we call for a genuine pan-European co-operation between local and regional authorities, their direct interaction and experience-sharing across national borders, which also means pooling of resources and cross-investment in each other’s projects. European integration offers great opportunities for such cross-border co-operation.

Our report on citizen participation at local and regional level in Europe, aims to assess direct democracy procedures at the grassroots and current trends. It will be debated during the session of the Congress this month. We are also launching the preparation of a report on the disengagement of young people and ways of involving them in democracy, which will be up for a debate next year.

Last but not least, I would like to mention a Congress initiative which has been running in Europe for several years now – the European Local Democracy Week. This initiative was launched in 2007 and has since become a truly pan-European event.

The idea is to dedicate one week around 15 October each year to bringing together local authorities and residents of their communities, organising public debates on burning issues, exchanging opinions and generally raising awareness of both sides of what is going on in your local community and wider world. All municipalities taking part in the European Local Democracy Week are paying particular attention to involving young people in the initiatives through exhibitions, musical events, youth councils’ meetings, lectures, interviews, etc.

There is a stand of the European Local Democracy Week during this conference, and I invite you to visit it and learn more about this initiative.

As a final thought for this meeting, focused on young people as citizens of tomorrow’s Europe, let me add that our Europe’s founding fathers had chartered for us a visionary path on which we have persevering, with our constant efforts and our vision, sometimes limited or egoistic, but always forward-looking. Now it is time for the new generations of young people of Europe to fully give their contribution and take their responsibilities for building with us a more cohesive, inclusive, a social and political Europe. We need fresh blood for a constructive, strategic and dynamic idea of tomorrow’s Europe, and we count on your active participation and your civic stand in shaping this vision.

Thank you.