31st Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 19-21 October 2016

Speaking notes for Mr Bernd VÖHRINGER

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Local democracy in Cyprus

Strasbourg, 20 October 2016

Dear colleagues,

It is a pleasure for me to present to you today the draft recommendation on local democracy in Cyprus. Unfortunately, my colleague Randi Mondorf cannot be here today so I will present our work on our behalf.

Our visit took place from 5 to 7 April of this year. The Congress delegation was composed by Randi Mondorf, and myself  as rapporteurs on local democracy. During our visit we had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Finance, as well as the senior officials of the Ministry of the Interior. The Delegation also met members of the national associations of local authorities, the Cypriot Delegation to the Congress, the President of the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman, and the Auditor General as well as the mayor and the deputy mayor of the capital city Nicosia, of Ayios Dhometios and of Paphos, and the President of the community of Kokkinotrimithia. Nevertheless, I must admit that we regret not having the opportunity to meet the members of the House of Representatives, notably at a time where important draft laws were going to be discussed.

However, our fruitful consultations allowed us to grasp quite well the current state of local democracy in Cyprus. I would like to thank the Cypriot Delegation to the Congress for its valuable help in preparing this visit.

Cyprus joined the Council of Europe soon after gaining independence, in 1961 to be precise. You might all probably be aware of the fact that Cyprus remains conflict-affected and, therefore, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus cannot exercise its sovereignty in the northern part of the Island. Our report, which focuses on the situation in the areas controlled by the Government, is the third on local democracy in that country. The last monitoring visit took place in 2005.

The prevailing political situation in Cyprus, a divided territory, still has some negative impacts on local governments in that country; some municipalities are regarded as “displaced” ones: they maintain their legal status although their mayors and councils have been displaced. Furthermore, other municipalities and communities are unable to exercise their competencies over their entire area of jurisdiction.

Having said this, I would in particular like to draw your attention to the currently on-going administrative reform, launched in 2011. The proposed legislations may deeply affect the range of powers and responsibilities of all local authorities, and the way as public functions are fulfilled. But at the moment, there is no precise information about the content of these reforms.

Since it ratified the Charter, in 1988, the Republic of Cyprus is bind by all of its dispositions except article §2 of article 7. However, pursuant to our consultations we concluded that, generally, the situation of local democracy in Cyprus is not in compliance with the Charter. We may express our disappointment that little change has occurred since the Congress adopted Recommendation 178 (2005). Let me briefly outline the most pressing points for you:


First of all, our delegation noticed the weakness and imprecision of legislative basis for powers and responsibilities of local authorities as well as for the conditions under which they exercised their tasks. We also noted the absence of constitutional safeguard for the principle of local self-government and the status of local authorities.

Moreover, we were stroke by the fact that no law regulates the legal standing of the elected members of the local councils, neither their rights nor allowances. We were also concerned by the absence of legal safeguard for the principle of adequate finance.

We further concluded that only minimal responsibilities are conferred by the relevant law to local authorities and that these authorities clearly lack of genuine functions. This matter was already problematic in 2005 and the situation has not improved to date.

With regards to the situation of local autonomy in Cyprus, we cannot ignore the importance of government supervision on the exercise of the regulatory powers of local authorities and on their personnel, administrative and budgetary resources, as well as the current lack of clarity over the administrative authorities entitled to exercise such supervision over municipalities. In particular, the prior control of the Government on local budgets persists, against the explicit recommendation of the Congress in 2005.

We also noticed the inadequacy of resources available to local authorities to exercise their powers, leading to a dependency on the state, in particular in case of small communes.

Finally, we have concerns about the weak legal status of the Charter in the Cypriot legal system and, particularly, the absence of direct applicability of its ratified dispositions. In this regard, we would like to draw the attention of the Cypriot authorities to the fact that the relevant jurisprudence of the Supreme Court declaring the Charter as a directly non-applicable legal tool violates its disposition (art.12). Here, I totally agree with the views of the Chair of the Committee in his presentation: this is a broader question, which is not unique to Cyprus and that the Monitoring Committee has to face in several member States.

Having said this, our recommendations are the following:

To provide clear recognition of the legislative and, if practicable, the constitutional status of local governments as well as the principle of self-government for all local authorities in order to strengthen their substantial role in regulating and administering local public affairs. We also call upon the Cypriot authorities to regulate the legal standing of local councillors allowing the free exercise of their functions.

We furthermore recommend to the Cypriot authorities to assign substantial powers and duties to local authorities that they can exercise fully and exclusively in practice and, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to specify the relevant tasks as genuine local government functions.

With regards to the strong control of the State on local authorities, we call upon the Cypriot Government to determine precisely, by way of legislation, which administrative authorities are empowered to exercise legal supervision over municipalities. Moreover, we would like to urge the Cypriot authorities to limit all kinds of central government supervision over local governments to an ex post control of legality, and to relinquish the power of central government to give prior consent to the budget of each local government.

To answer the concerns raised by some of our interlocutors, we invite the central Authorities of Cyprus to draw up legislation setting out formally the procedures for consulting local authority representatives and national local governments unions to ensure that they are effectively consulted, that is in due time and in an appropriate manner, on all questions concerning directly those authorities, in particular on financial questions.

In regard to the challenging financial situation of many local authorities in Cyprus, we invite the Government to provide adequate financial resources for self-government authorities to be commensurate with their responsibilities and which they may dispose of freely within the framework of their powers.

 We also recommend to the Cypriot authorities to establish a transparent and predictable calculation method of central grants to local authorities based on a careful assessment of local needs and to introduce a mechanism for equalisation purpose between local authorities.

For last we stress the importance for the Government to ensure the direct applicability of the European Charter of Local Self-government within the domestic legal system and, in particular, guarantee that the Charter be given due consideration in court proceedings.

A reform is at the moment in process. But to date, certain facts are self-evident. To be honest with you, it is undeniable that work remains to be done for Cyprus to be in full compliance with the Charter. For our part, we will closely follow Cypriot efforts to address, in cooperation with Cypriot local authorities, the remaining challenges.

I hope that you will be able to adopt the draft recommendation which reflects well I believe, our main findings and how to better improve the situation in terms of local democracy in this country.

Thank you for your attention.