Brussels, 03/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - What role should the future constitutional treaty attribute to local and regional authorities? Further to discussions on the sharing of powers, after the Napolitano report adopted mid-January by the European Parliament, the Convention is now, during the plenary meeting on Friday morning, to take an interest in the question of the regional and local dimension in Europe. It was not certain that this debate, which the regional associations and the Committee of the Regions have been calling for for several months, would in fact be held. Lacking a specific working group, the plenary could only be prepared by the meeting, on 30 January, of a contact group on the regions and local authorities. In order to structure the debate, the Praesidium put four questions to the Convention Members: 1) Should the first articles of the Treaty refer to regional and local authorities? 2) Should the Treaty provide for consultation of regional authorities as well as for partnership with these authorities? 3) Should the Committee of the Regions be able to defend its prerogatives before the Court of Justice?, should its composition be reviewed?, and should the Commission and the Council give reasons for their decision not to follow its opinions? 4) Should the right of the regions to refer matters to the Court be expressly mentioned when the regions are directly concerned by a decision or regulation?
About one hundred representatives of the regions and of regional associations took part in the "authorities and regions" contact group, chaired by Jean-Luc Dehaene. On the whole, they supported the idea that the Treaty should refer to the role of the regional and territorial authorities and also to consultation of these authorities by the Commission. Participants in the meeting took the stance for the "principles of the free administration and democracy of local authorities" being cited as fundamental EU values, referring to the European Charter on Local Autonomy (the representatives of the regions and associations did not ask the EU to sign up to that charter). They, moreover, hoped that territorial cohesion should be enshrined of the EU's goals alongside economic and social cohesion. Regions with legislative powers insisted they be given a special status, with the ability to turn to the Court of Justice, but this demand did not receive the support of the association of regions. The members of the Committee of the Regions again defended their demand to see the committee being given the status of institution.
The association of cities and regions adopted a common "platform" to have their demands heard by the members of the Convention, demands prepared in collaboration with the Commission. The associations consider that the Treaty should stipulate that: 1) the EU must respect "the organisation of public powers at national, regional and local levels"; 2) the notion of subsidiarity encompassing the powers of regional and local authorities "according to national constitutional orders"; 3) "the Union proceeding at an early stage with the consultation of the parties interested", when preparing a proposal concerning territorial authorities; 4) an "active partnership" covering cities and regions "is necessary"; 5) European policies must be at the "service of missions defined in the European project, " including "society's cohesion an the European area"; 6) the CoR must be able to turn to the Court of Justice on issues of subsidiarity. Like the Commission, these associations hope their proposals will make it possible to reach consensus in the face of the regions with legislative power, which have very high demands, and also in the face of countries like Spain and France, which are very hesitant. They note that the idea of conferring particular status to the regions with legislative power has already been rejected on two occasions by the European Parliament (Lamassoure report and Napolitano report). The proposal was prepared by the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR), the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and the Eurocities network, along with the Conference of Regional European Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) and the Assembly of European Regions (AER).
The British government, in an address by Peter Hain, called for the EU's procedures to be overhauled to enable the regions to play a more important role. It feels that the Treaty should foresee that the Commission consult with local and regional authorities before publishing proposals in areas that concern them and says it favours the idea of tripartite contracts (Commission/state/local or regional authority) but stresses that a flexible formula should be adopted. Peter Hain supported the idea of giving the CoR the right to take cases to the Court of Justice in order to ensure that subsidiarity is respected, noting that serious thought must be given to a new CoR with full institutional status, even suggesting that its name be changed "to mark a new beginning". He added that the British government might associate regional parliaments in any ex-ante subsidiarity control mechanism by national parliaments.