Committee of Ministers, Rapporteur Group on Democracy (GR-DEM)

Meeting of 9 September 2014

Exchange of views with Mr Karl-Heinz Lambertz, Chair of the Congress Governance Committee and thematic Spokesperson on co-operation with the Council of Europe intergovernmental sector

Intervention of Andreas KIEFER, Secretary General of the Congress

I would like to give you a brief reminder of the main tasks and priorities of the Congress. The Congress is a political body consisting of 318 members, local and regional politicians for the 47 member states, established by the Heads of States of the Council of Europe member states as a forum of political dialogue and debate. We hold our political debates mainly with the Committee of Ministers.

Secondly, the Congress has a consultative role and adopts recommendations to the Committee of Ministers.

Thirdly it is a monitoring body, to assess the application of the European Charter of Local Self-Government by member states and it observes local and regional elections. Both for the monitoring of the Charter and the observation of elections our recommendation feed into the CoE action plans and in the concrete cooperation activities.

Fourthly, we perform operational tasks and cooperate with member states’ governments and with other parts of the Council of Europe secretariat in drafting and implementing the Council of Europe action plans.

Lastly the Congress is an active actor in disseminating Council of Europe policies and products. For example, we set up the Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma Inclusion to complement the intergovernmental work in this field. We have also established the Pact of Towns and Regions to Stop Sexual Violence against Children, to support the work of the intergovernmental sector, working with the Parliamentary Assembly, which established contact-parliamentarians on this issue. So we approach the same objective from different sides.

Furthermore we contribute to the Council of Europe neighbourhood policy and cooperate with the GRECO in fighting corruption at local and regional level. We contribute to the interreligious dialogue, because this is a basis for the integration of people in our cohesive societies as well as the integration of migrants. In our session in October members will discuss a report on intercultural education and integration presented by the Deputy Mayor of Strasbourg, Mrs Nawel Rafik-Elmrini. So the political work of the Congress is very much focussed on the core business and political agenda of the Committee of Ministers and the Secretary General.

Our October Session will have a general theme of “Empowering Youth; shared responsibly for cities and regions”. For the first time we will invite one young person per national delegation to sit next to its Head of Delegation, with the possibility of taking the floor like any other Congress member. We will not be talking about youth but with youth, and this respect we are cooperating closely with the youth sector of DG Democracy.

Other highlights of the October session will be the election of the President, the Presidents of the Chambers, the Vice-Presidents and the Presidents of the Committees for a mandate of 2 years. We will also hold an exchange of views with the Azeri chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers and with Secretary General Jagland. Yesterday the Congress Bureau decided to hold a debate on separatist tensions in Ukraine and neighbouring countries, and we already have confirmation of the participation in this debate of Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Groysman, as well as the foreign and deputy foreign ministers of Georgia and Moldova.  The Bureau also decided to invite our former member Leyla Güven (whose case is on of the agenda of today’s meeting) to address the Congress Session.  Members will also discuss a monitoring report on Belgium and reports on local and regional elections in Ukraine, Georgia and the Netherlands.

The Congress was inspired by the Parliamentary Assembly to offer delegations of local and regional authorities from countries covered by the Council of Europe neighbourhood policy the opportunity to participate in Congress activities. Similar to the Parliamentary Assembly, we will introduce a “partner for local democracy” status and offer this to neighbouring states and their respective associations of local and regional authorities. We are happy to have the Deputy Foreign Minister of Morocco and a representative of the Moroccan national association attend the Session.

Congress members will also discuss a further modernisation of the Congress Charter, which will then be submitted to the Committee of Ministers. The Chamber of Local Authorities will discuss one of the horizontal questions that are mentioned in the letter that you have received on recurring issues in the Congress monitoring. The report deals with the concept of adequate financial resources as seen in different member states. As you can see, we are pursuing our approach of drawing conclusions from our individual monitoring activities in member states to form a broader thematic perspective and also to introduce these findings into the Council of Europe action plans.

The Chamber of Regional Authorities will discuss good practices in fighting corruption at local and regional level and discuss the outcome of the referendum in Scotland, which is of course of special interest of our members, both with regard to the substance and also because it will be the first time that young people of the age of 16 are able to participate in such a vote.

This is a short overview on what the Congress is currently doing.