Members of the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX) of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) discussed with MEPs Antonio Tajani (EPP, Italy) and Helmut Scholz (The Left, Germany), on Tuesday 30 March how to strengthen the participation of the regions in the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Thus, for the participants in the discussion, one of the first responses would be to integrate CoR members into the pilot project ‘Building Europe with Local Entities’ (BELE), launched by the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO).
During the discussion, Mr Scholz, rapporteur for an own-initiative report on the participation of European citizens in the European decision-making process, called for a permanent participatory mechanism to enable European citizens to take part in the decision-making process, an idea that had also been developed by former CoR President Karl-Heinz Lambertz (PES, Belgium) (see EUROPE 12188/14).
In addition, CoR members discussed a working document to prepare an opinion on the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP) (see EUROPE 12528/27). During the discussion, the members regretted that the role of local and regional authorities was not mentioned in the European Commission’s communication.
To access Mr Scholz’s own-initiative report: https://bit.ly/31wkd6K (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)