The EU's Committee of the Regions (CoR) will be holding its
99th Plenary Session in Brussels on 31 January and 1 February 2013. The agenda and all working documents for the 99th plenary can be found online. All plenary sessions are publicly
webstreamed live in all official EU languages.
2013 CoR Plenary Calendar
| 99th Plenary |
31 January - 1 February |
102nd Plenary |
3 - 4 July |
| 100th Plenary |
11 – 12 April |
103rd Plenary |
8 - 9 October |
| 101st Plenary |
30 - 31 May |
104th Plenary |
28 - 29 November |
About the Committee of the Regions' Plenary Sessions
The CoR holds 5 or 6 plenary sessions each year attended by all of its democratically elected 344
members (353 starting from July 2013 with the entry of Croatia) coming from local and regional authorities from all 27 EU Member States.
Normally chaired by the assembly's President – currently
Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso - the main purpose of the plenary sessions is to:
- Adopt opinions, reports and resolutions
- Adopt the draft estimates of expenditure and revenue of the Committee
- Adopt the political programme of the Committee at the beginning of every term
- Elect the President, the First Vice-president and the remaining members of the Bureau
- Set up policy commissions within the institution
- Adopt and revise the Committee's Rules of Procedure
Within the European legislative process the European Commission is required to consult the CoR on policy areas that directly affect local and regional authorities. The relevant
CoR policy commission will appoint one of its members to report and draft an opinion on the legislative proposal which is then put to the vote during one of the CoRs' plenary. If it receives a majority vote it is adopted and passed to the other EU institutions.
The CoR may also proactively adopt a position on a particular issue through an own-initiative opinion.