14 October 2011

Embargoed until delivery

SPEECH BY MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU,

PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY,

AT THE 21^st SESSION OF THE CONGRESS OF LOCAL AND

REGIONAL AUTHORITIES OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

(Strasbourg, Tuesday, 18 October 2010, 2.45 pm)

Dear President, members of the Congress,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me a real pleasure to speak today at the Plenary session of the Congress. I am glad that our institutional co-operation remains strong: Assembly representatives participate regularly in the activities of the Congress, as it was recently the case with the Strasbourg Summit of Mayors on Roma. Earlier this year, I had the privilege of addressing the Bureau of the Congress which met in my home region of Antalya and we held a very fruitful exchange of views. Therefore, I am very much looking forward to continuing our discussion today.

Dear colleagues,

In our today’s interconnected and globalised world, co-ordinated action at various levels of government is essential in order to address in a comprehensive manner the challenges our societies have to face. For this reason, the Assembly supports the work of the Congress and always looks for synergies and opportunities for joint action.

Indeed, the principles of good democratic governance, which our Organisation stands for, can only be fully implemented through a multi-level approach, where local and regional authorities play a key role. Today, practically all issues of national politics have local and regional implications. Therefore, good multi-level governance implies an important degree of decentralisation of power. Local and regional authorities are fulfilling an increasing number of functions which are of direct interest for the citizens: education and childcare, social assistance and housing, health care, employment, maintenance of public order, to name but several. Therefore, in the current context of the economic and financial crisis, budgetary austerity measures and cuts in public funding, it is the local authorities which are, most often, directly affected.

In this connection, let me inform you that during the October 2011 part-session, our Assembly held a debate on The activities of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with the participation of parliamentarians from OECD member states, both those which are members of the Council of Europe as well as “oversees” delegations. This very rich debate highlighted once again the macroeconomic difficulties we have to face: the financial and economic crisis has left many Council of Europe member states, as well as OECD member states, with a legacy of modest growth, weak public finances and persistently high unemployment, in particular affecting young people. Consequently, local and regional authorities in many of our member states see their capacity to cope with the consequences of the crisis weakening.

In this context, we are looking forward to participating, together with the Congress, in the 17th session of the Conference of European Ministers for Local and Regional Governments, which will be organised in Kyiv, in November 2011. This conference will address, among other issues, the challenges posed by the financial crisis to local and regional governments and we are looking forward to providing a contribution to the debate as well as to the implementation of the decisions of the Conference. I personally have the intention of attending this important event.

Dear colleagues,

Environment and sustainable development is another area where synergies between the Assembly and the Congress could be developed. In September I attended a round table on “Public–private partnership in the sphere of risks reduction - a basis for the country’s competitiveness”, organised jointly by the «Risk reduction Foundation» and the Parliament  of Ukraine, with the participation of the Assembly’s Sub-committee on Sustainable Development. The debate at this round table highlighted the need to develop national risk evaluation strategies in order to minimise the adverse effects of climate change and natural disasters. This will also be the main message of the Assembly’s report prepared by Mrs Marin on preventing natural disasters. This report will focus on the promotion of a new rural development policy, including legislation that will focus primarily on construction safety and rational use of soil, better protection of urban areas and increased control of existing infrastructures and, in particular, dams, pipelines and rail and road bridges. I am sure that the Congress has a lot to contribute to this work and we look forward to extending our co-operation on this front.

Dear friends,

Today, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Social Charter and I find it very symbolic that this celebration takes place during the plenary session of the Congress. Indeed, in many of our member states local and regional authorities play an important role in “delivering” social rights, in accordance with national policies. In this context, I welcome the fact that this year’s Local Democracy Week is focusing on “Human Rights at Local Level”, giving the possibility to local and regional authorities to share their experiences and good practices in addressing the most pressing needs of the citizens, relating to social rights and human rights.

This brings me to one more important area where the work of the Assembly and of the Congress is very much complementary – that is, promoting the right environment for “living together”. A truly inter-cultural model of “living together”, which allows culturally different groups within society to interact, is the most effective response to intolerance, extremism and xenophobia  - the worst evils our societies have to face today. As the Assembly and the Congress have stated it on numerous occasions, dialogue, integration and interaction between different communities start at local level. Therefore, the Congress’ role in promoting our inter-cultural model of living together is essential.

In this respect, the fact that “Living together in dignity” is the special theme of this session of the Congress is very significant. Within the framework of this special theme, the Congress will be holding this week a debate on the situation of Roma, building upon the Conclusions of the Strasbourg Summit of Mayors on Roma held on 22 September 2011. As you know, the Assembly supported this event and our representatives took part in it. Therefore, I would like to stress that we give our full support to the Summit’s proposal to set up a European Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma inclusion, which would provide a platform for sharing good practices, building up local and regional authorities’ capacities, identifying specific problems and proposing concrete solutions.

Moreover, this week you are going to hold a debate on the fight to eradicate sexual abuse of children, within the framework of the Council of Europe ONE in FIVE Campaign. As you know, the Assembly is fully involved in the parliamentary dimension of this Campaign and I am glad that Ms Carina OHLSSON, member of our Social, Family and Health Affairs Committee, will participate in this debate. I am sure it will promote further the synergies between the Congress and the Assembly within the framework of the ONE in FIVE Campaign.

Dear colleagues,

Before concluding my address, I would like to share with you some thoughts about our respective contributions to the Council of Europe Neighbourhood policy. When I addressed you last year, I presented to you our new status of Partnership for Democracy which we developed to allow Parliaments of non-member states, sharing our values and subscribing to our standards, to participate in our work. In the face of the ongoing revolutionary changes in the Arab world, this status proves to be a very effective tool to support democratic transformations. In June this year the Parliament of the Kingdom of Morocco became our first Partner for Democracy. During the October part-session, the Palestinian National Council received the Partnership status as well. We now actively promote this new status in Tunisia through providing support in the organisation of democratic elections as well as their observation. We hope the newly elected authorities will apply for the partnership status when they are in place.

But I must stress that the interest in the partnership status is growing not only around the Mediterranean. During the October part-session, I received in Strasbourg a delegation from the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic, headed by a Vice-speaker of Parliament. During this visit, the Vice-speaker handed over to me a letter from the Speaker of Parliament informing me of the Parliament’s decision to apply for the Partnership status. This is an important political message which I support. Therefore, we are looking forward to receiving a formal application from the Kyrgyz Parliament, so that we could launch the procedure.

At the same time, the granting of the partnership status will not in itself resolve all the challenges relating to democratic transformations our neighbours have to face. There are many other mechanisms of supporting them and, I think, local and regional authorities could play an active role in this process.

Democracy takes root at local level! Therefore, local democracy, community engagement, interaction with civil society and support to the citizen’s voluntary initiatives are the elements which will help our neighbours build a solid foundation for strong and well functioning democratic institutions at national level.

We all remember that in the ‘90s, decentralised co-operation between local and regional authorities was instrumental in strengthening democratic institutions in newer European democracies joining the Council of Europe. And the Congress’ contribution to this process was very successful, especially in the Balkans where democratic institutions had to be re-built following the conflicts which accompanied the break up of the former Yugoslavia. Today, I believe that the local and regional authorities, as well as the Congress, will share this experience with our Mediterranean and Central Asian neighbours. By acting together, at national and local levels, we can make the process of democratic transformation much more effective!

Dear colleagues, friends,

Let me finish my speech on an institutional note: during our 2011 June part-session, we adopted a very important report on the reform of the Parliamentary Assembly, in line with the overall reform agenda which our Organisation is engaged in. This reforms aims at strengthening the Assembly’s political relevance and effectiveness, making it more visible and improving our members’ participation, while reinforcing interaction between the Assembly and national parliaments. During the October part-session, we changed our rules in line with the reform requirements, so that we can start the 2012 Assembly session with new rules and working methods.

The reform contains a series of measures ranging from policy actions to changes in our working methods and structures and, to save time, I will not present to you all the novelties today. At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to two measures which are important for our institutional relations.

Firstly, in order to focus our work, we created a new Committee on Social Cohesion, Health and Sustainable Development by merging the existing Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee  and the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs. From 23 January 2012 on, this new Committee will become your privileged interlocutor on all issues relating to local and regional government. As a result of the reform, the Assembly will count eight sectoral committees instead of the current ten.

Secondly, we decided to strengthen the implementation of our texts: rapporteurs for report will now continue to be seized for one year after their adoption to ensure the follow-up. In my opinion, this measure is very important for increasing our effectiveness: it provides an opportunity to oversee the implementation of an Assembly text, as well as take appropriate actions by rapporteurs, whenever necessary. Moreover, with this extended mandate, rapporteurs become automatically “contact persons” on any issues concerning the adopted text and its implementation. I am sure that this will offer additional opportunities for developing co-operation and synergies further between the Assembly and the Congress, for example, whenever issues raised in our texts have local and regional implications and may be taken up further by the Congress.

Dear colleagues, friends,

The subjects the Congress and the Assembly are dealing with are complementary and our structures and rules of procedure offer plenty of avenues for strengthening our co-operation further. I will now be more than happy to continue this discussion with you in the format of an exchange of views. Thank you for your attention.