The Bureau of the Committee of the Regions (comprising the President and First Vice-President, 28 Vice-Presidents and 28 members, as well as the Chairmen of the political groups) adopted on Tuesday 5 February a first version of the Bucharest Declaration, which should be adopted at the end of the 8th Summit of Regions and Cities, on 15 March in Bucharest.
This declaration, consulted by EUROPE, is intended to be presented to European leaders at the Sibiu summit on 9 May. Entitled "Building the EU from the ground up with our regions and cities", the Committee proposes to support European integration more on local and regional authorities, in which citizens' trust "is on average higher than trust in national governments".
Ten priorities are put forward, including the need to strengthen multi-level governance in a "spirit of trust" and "loyal cooperation", or the implementation of "active subsidiarity", which has been promoted by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12123). In the same vein, the regions consider it essential to move towards greater decentralisation and a better division of powers and insist on the need to establish a "permanent consultation" of European citizens (see other news).
In addition, regions and cities are calling for more responsibility and flexibility to achieve sustainable development goals, which should be integrated into the future European Union strategy. The declaration calls for a strengthening of the social dimension of the European project, so that "social rights are put on par with economic rights”. Recalling the cardinal role of local and regional authorities in the reception and integration of migrants, the declaration calls for direct EU financial support to regions and cities.
The budgetary issue is also clearly addressed, with regions and cities calling for increased public investment, which is currently considered "too low" by the authors of the declaration. They urge the Union to "give the necessary room to manoeuvre" to local and regional authorities to support investment, an implicit reference to a relaxation of the European Budget Pact, as stressed by the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz (see EUROPE 12138).
In view of the next multiannual financial framework, the declaration calls on European leaders to adopt an "ambitious" European budget. The Committee supports a European budget for 2021-2027 with an expenditure level of 1.3% of GNI - and calls for an agreement as soon as possible.
As for Cohesion Policy, the declaration stresses its key characteristics, in particular the territorialised approach, European partnerships - undermined by the Council's partial general approach (see EUROPE 12163) - and shared management. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)