Brussels, 04/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The elected representatives of the regions of the European Union have begun work with their counterparts from the countries of Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and have agreed an action plan to bring about closer political cooperation.
Local and regional representatives from the EU and Eastern Partnership countries took part on 30 June in a stakeholder conference on “Local and Regional Dimension of the Eastern Partnership” as well as the Bureau meeting of CORLEAP, an assembly for dialogue between local and regional authorities from the EU and its eastern partner countries, founded by the Committee of the Regions (CoR) in Poznan, Poland in the autumn of last year. It was here that the concrete steps of the action plan were agreed. CoR President and Joint President of CORLEAP Mercedes Bresso said that “when we can combine the efforts of governments, parliaments, civil society and regional and local authorities, we are better placed to advance the approximation of the Eastern Partnership countries with the EU”. CORLEAP Joint President Dorin Chirtoaca, who is the Mayor of Chisinau, Moldova, said: “We need to achieve as much decentralisation as possible in our countries. Our goal is to achieve more autonomy, more fiscal decentralisation and more administrative decentralisation. Such a process is key should we want to move towards closer political association with the EU”. This is a view which can only please Bresso who stressed that “there is no true democracy without local democracy that allows people to feel that they can decide on the issues of their daily lives”.
The 36 CORLEAP members will further discuss cooperation when they meet again in Chisinau in September. (MD/transl.rt)