Tangiers, 15/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - In order to reach the Millennium Development Objectives, the future French Presidency of the EU has included local governance, decentralisation and regional development in its priorities. It is supporting cohesion policy through institutional support and mobilisation of regional actors. His Excellency Bruno Dethomas, the ambassador and head of the European Commission's delegation in Morocco, bore witness to this in Tangiers at the second International Convention of the Regions for a Regional Approach in Tangiers, as well as the inter-ministerial delegate for decentralised cooperation, Antoine Joly.
France initiated a reflection on a cooperation charter involving access to local governance. This charter will be annexed to the communication being prepared by the Commission, which will be called “Towards a European Approach to Local Democratic Governance, Decentralisation and Regional Development”. Mr Joly announced that this will be the subject of a Council of European ministers' conclusions in November 2008. The subject of this charter will be to improve coherence, complimentarity, efficiency of intervention from local government actors (administrations, state, civil society, private sector etc.). The French delegate explained that it also has an operational aim and highlights the importance of respect for the public powers in local action.
France also decided that the European Development Days in Strasbourg on 15-17 November this year will focus on local government and the Millennium Objectives. It will also concentrate on the links between French NGOs and the United Nations, particularly the UNDP, given its coordination role, as well as the OAA. It is giving its support to the forums allowing regional bodies to take their place in inter-continental dialogue, as well as the forum of regional bodies in the whole of the Mediterranean, with a view to the forthcoming summit of heads of state and government of the Union for the Mediterranean, the initiative for which comes from the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Antoine Joly explained that “all this will prove that France is not absent from the debate on the role and place of the regions on the international scene”. It is useful to distinguish between the regional development approach and decentralised cooperation. The former targets both the regionalisation of sectoral policies to give them an indispensable regional anchorage to their success, and providing local governance with a capacity for a global regional development approach. Joly explained that this function involves, above all, states and international organisations. He added that “European regional policy is a success. This success has to be able to act as a policy that we take forward with our neighbours and whole world”. The French delegate affirmed that with regard to decentralised cooperation “it is, by definition, regionalised…It consists of cooperation amongst equals, which facilitates regional management in all its economic, social and environmental components. We need to capitalise on the experiences we have gained”.
Bruno Dethomas declared that “as a development actor, it is important that the regions find their place in implementation of aid efficiency in order to move forward”. Dethomas indicated that 2008 is a key year for involving the regions in development. The Commission will publish a communication on local development by the end of the year, which will include three key ideas: local governance, decentralisation and regional development. In so doing, the Commission will be encouraging: the creation of a platform that brings together the local and regional authorities active in development - which will represent them in the dialogue with the European institutions; implementation of a decentralised cooperation grant. It is also expected to take an initiative in development twinning, the aim of which will be to strengthen the operational running of the local authorities and to develop cultural and human partnerships, as well as cooperation between the north and south, local authorities and local associations. (G.B.)