The Committee of the Regions (CoR) is looking for a better way for its voice to be heard at the Conference on the Future of Europe, and so organised a debate on the matter at a meeting of the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX) on Tuesday 16 February.
Like the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12656/30), the Committee wants to increase its influence at the Conference and in the EU decision-making process. The members of the Committee hope that the European treaties will eventually be amended to strengthen the role of local and regional authorities, with the aim of democratising the European Union.
During the debate, Domènec Ruiz Devesa MEP (S&D, Spain) presented a European Parliament pilot project called ‘Building Europe with local entities’ (BELE). The MEP explained that the aim of the pilot project is to strengthen direct communication with European citizens on European initiatives by providing regular statements to local media or organising debates led by local authorities.
Also invited to the debate was Sarah Meyer, a researcher working at Danube Krems University in Austria as part of REGIOPARL, a multi-annual research project that focuses on the regional dimension in European policies. Meyer believes that the Committee should play a key role within the Conference by systematically defending the regional and local perspective in all Conference activities.
Generally speaking, the regions feel that they are not taken into account enough in European policies, in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (see EUROPE 12643/32) or in the post-Brexit agreement (see EUROPE 12632/16), for example. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)