Europe is currently in crisis, both a financial crisis and a crisis of
confidence towards its institutions, which makes it more important than ever to
make multilevel governance a reality in the Member States. Ensuring that cities
and regions are more involved in framing, implementing and evaluating EU
policies with a territorial impact will lay the necessary foundations for the
success of those policies. This is the message of Committee of the Regions
members meeting today in plenary session in Brussels, with the
unanimous adoption of the opinion presented by
Luc Van den Brande (BE/EPP), president of the Flanders-Europe Liaison
Agency.
In its 2009 White Paper on Multilevel Governance, the Committee of the
Regions (CoR) undertook to promote a culture of multilevel governance in Europe
in order to strengthen the Community method based on partnership, dialogue,
joint implementation and participation of elected representatives at all levels
of the European process. The follow-up opinion adopted today reports on progress
made in EU policies with a territorial dimension, such as the single market, the
environment, energy, agriculture and fisheries, enlargement policies,
development and neighbourhood policy. It also recommends new measures to
consolidate the exercise of this method of governance.
"Multilevel governance must not be regarded as a purely theoretical concept
of EU jargon that is endorsed on paper but rarely applied in practice. The
principle of multilevel governance must be an integral part of EU legislative
texts as a fundamental guiding principle of the European decision‑making process
for all EU policies with a territorial impact. The time has come for a new
culture and practical approach to multilevel governance", noted Mr Van den
Brande when his opinion was adopted.
The opinion observes that the CoR's call for multilevel governance has gained
traction over the past few years in its partner institutions. This applies to
the Lisbon Treaty, which has entrenched multilevel governance in the operation
of the EU, as well as recent European Commission proposals on future cohesion
policy, which recognises the essential role of local and regional levels of
government in framing and implementing EU programmes. The CoR is also
increasingly recognised by the other institutions as a source of expertise in
this area. Despite all these developments, considerable progress still has to be
made.
"We must obviously go further than this. The CoR's Multilevel Governance
Scoreboard, which monitors the progress of multilevel governance at EU level,
demonstrates the persistence of deficits and gaps in observing the principle of
multilevel governance, including in key EU dossiers such as the Europe 2020
strategy, energy policy and the Stockholm Programme on immigration and asylum.
There are still too few innovative instruments created to encourage the
participation of cities and regions and hold them accountable," explained the
rapporteur.
To give form and substance to the CoR's political project, its members
advocate the drawing up of a European Union Charter for Multilevel Governance,
which should lead to more participation of local and regional authorities in the
exercise of European democracy. By the same token, they ask the Commission to
consider adapting EU administrative law in order to establish more participatory
procedures in accordance with the key values and principles of this future
Charter.
The CoR also intends to continue its annual assessment of the situation of
regionalisation and decentralisation in the European Union so as to provide a
measure of progress observed towards local and regional authorities' political,
judicial and fiscal autonomy.
Further information:
For more information, please contact:
Nathalie Vandelle
+32
0)2 282 24 99
+32
(0)2 282 20 85