Regions, cities and villages also ask for a strong role
in running EU investment for recovery to ensure that
funds reach those most affected by the pandemic.
The COVID crisis highlights the need to connect EU
policymaking with the needs of local communities
via the crucial role of locally elected
politicians: this is the message passed today by
the Members of the European Committee of the
Regions to European Commission Vice-President Maroš
Šefčovič. During a plenary debate, local and
regional leaders reiterated their commitment to
improve EU legislation by contributing to the
Fit for Future (F4F) platform
. In
a
resolution with proposals for the 2022 European
Commission Work Programme
, CoR members request that the European Commission
ensures that local and regional authorities are
involved in the implementation of the National
Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) in order to
effectively address the pandemic's consequences on
the ground. They also ask to extend crucial
flexibility measures that were introduced to
mobilise European structural and investment funds
during the COVID crisis.
Improving EU rules is a top priority for local and
regional authorities, who are in charge of implementing
70 % of EU legislation. Regional and local leaders
reiterated that EU laws have to bring the most added
value to local communities and respect the fundamental
principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. This
can only be achieved if locally elected politicians are
fully involved in the EU legislative process and if
their input is recognised and respected in the Better
regulation agenda, throughout every phase of the
policymaking.
Apostolos Tzitzikostas,
President of the European Committee of the Regions,
said: "T
he quality of the EU legislation improves when
local and regional authorities share with the
Commission their experience and knowledge on the
ground. With their involvement, the Commission's
work gains in transparency and efficiency. Lively
cooperation with local politicians allows to
improve the whole policy cycle: policy design and
preparation, adoption, implementation, evaluation
and revision. The experience developed by local
leaders in tackling the health and economic
consequences of the pandemic is a concrete example
of the added value they can provide to the EU
decision making process, to better address the real
needs of our local communities
."
Speaking at the Plenary,
European Commission’s Vice-President for
Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight
Maroš Šefčovič
said:
“What we need is EU legislation that is easy to
comply with, efficient and fit for the future. The
work of the Committee of the Regions is especially
important here, as the Fit for Future Platform has
a strong mandate for topics of particular
importance for local and regional authorities. For
example, its 2021 annual work programme includes
cross-border healthcare, public procurement and air
quality – all suggested by the representatives of
the Committee. Equally, I am glad to see the
Committee of the Regions building its foresight
capacities. Europe needs a resilient society and
therefore, bringing a forward-looking perspective
to EU policymaking requires cooperation across all
EU institutions and bodies. Following up on direct
input from this Committee, our resilience
dashboards – a new tool to assess resilience in a
holistic manner – will also aim to include
indicators of regional disparities.”
Background:
The European Commission acknowledges the CoR's
contribution to the EU Better Regulation agenda: clear
distinctions between the contributions from different
levels of government are made and the role of local and
regional authorities in evidence-based policymaking is
recognised. Furthermore, the European Commission has
committed to practising active subsidiarity and calls
for the systematic use of the
Subsidiarity Assessment Grid
which was developed by the CoR. But the involvement of
local and regional authorities in the EU
decision-making process could be further strengthened
and become a structured and interactive exercise, for
example with systematic Territorial Impact Assessments
and consultations which are better tailored for local
and regional authorities.
The F4F platform as main instrument of the EC
Better regulation agenda
is designed to simplify and modernise EU laws to better
tackle future challenges, while cutting red tape. With
3 Chairs of commissions in the government body of the
Platform and
the network of Regional Hubs
, as sub-group of the Platform, the CoR is present in
the Platform at both levels of revising and evaluating
existing EU legislation. It therefore represents not
only the local and regional authorities but also
citizens and businesses which implement EU law on daily
basis. The 3 Chairs of CoR commissions have been
appointed as rapporteurs during the last F4F Plenary in
March:
Mark Speich (DE/EPP)
, Secretary of State for Federal, European and
International Affairs for the Land of North
Rhine-Westphalia and chair of CoR commission on
Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External
Affairs (
CIVEX
) is rapporteur for Public procurement legislation with
focus on e-procurement;
Anne Karjalainen (FI/PSE)
, Kerava City Councillor, chair of the CoR commission
for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and
Culture (SEDEC) is rapporteur on the INSPIRE directive
– an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
that establishes common standards to describe and share
spatial data like natural risk zones, transport
networks or population distribution;
Ulrika Landergren (SE/RE)
, Councillor in the Swedish municipality of Kungsbacka
and chair of the CoR commission for Natural Resources
(NAT) is rapporteur on cross-border healthcare.
Last but not least, the CoR contributes to the European
Commission's second Foresight report with information
gathered from its networks and from its yearly local
and regional Barometer in order to ensure that the
realities on the ground, and a sub-national
perspective, are included in the global outlook of the
EU's foresight.
Subsidiarity ensures that the EU can only act when it
is more effective than the national, regional or local
levels in tackling certain issues. It is about ensuring
that there is sufficient added-value in all the EU's
actions. The concept of Active Subsidiarity is a new way of
working that takes the traditional approach to
subsidiarity a step further. It encourages all
institutional, national and sub-national actors to
contribute constructively to improving the added value
of EU legislation throughout the policymaking cycle.
The Active Subsidiarity approach was proposed by the
CoR during the
Task Force on Subsidiarity, Proportionality and
Doing Less More Efficiently
and taken up in
the European Commission's Communication on the
principles of subsidiarity and proportionality
in October 2018
.
CoR contribution in the Conference on the
Future of Europe
.
Contact:
Marie-Pierre Jouglain
Mobile: +32 (0)473 52 41 15
mariepierre.jouglain@cor.europa.eu