Brussels, 23/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Regions hopes that the plenary session of the European Convention devoted to the place of EU local and regional authorities of 7 February will grant them a more important role in drafting and implementing Community policies. Having met Valery Giscard d'Estaing on Monday, the President of the Committee of the Regions, Albert Bore, placed emphasis on the fact that "the European Convention cannot limit its ambitions to being a body where European policy is redefined from above, but must extend its investigations … to the local dimension, within which citizens are in daily contact with the process of drafting Europe's policies". In favour of the measures proposed by the Napolitano report of the European Parliament (EUROPE of 18 January, p.5), Mr. Bore asks the Convention to call for a "strengthening of the devolved role of the Committee of the Regions and local and regional authorities". It is not a question of "placing back into question the authority of Member States, nor of rendering Community decision-making more burdensome", he declared in a press release, stating that, on the contrary, "co-ordination, transparency and proximity of the citizen in relation to Europe can but progress if local and regional authorities are recognised, as they are the fundamental vectors for implementing community legislation, and have the resources for defining policies".