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Evaluation of local and regional democracy in member states since November 1998: contribution by the Congress to the local democracy monitoring procedure of the Committee of Ministers - CG (7) 17 Part II

During 1999 and 2000, as part of its statutory responsibilities, the Congress made a special study of the state of local and/or regional democracy by preparing specific reports on the following member states: Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and San Marino (1999), the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Moldova (2000)¹. The representatives of Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and San Marino were invited to the mini-sessions of the Congress in November 1999 and March 2000 in order to describe the measures adopted by their governments to implement the Congress recommendations². The representatives of the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Moldova were invited to the mini-session of the Congress scheduled for November 2000.

In addition, also as part of the Congress’ statutory duties, a general report was drawn up on political monitoring of the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government with reference to the financial resources of local authorities in relation to their responsibilities. The report (CPL (7) 3 Part II), which also looks at implementation of the subsidiarity principle, was prepared during 1998-2000 and approved by the 7^th Plenary Session of the Congress in May 2000. It resulted in Recommendation 79 (2000) and Resolution 97 (2000).

It was deemed most appropriate to use a horizontal, theme-based approach in this summary, which is based on the above reports, of the general development of local and regional self-government in the countries concerned. To illustrate this development, the situation is described in each country in turn.

Before making a systematic review of the most important or interesting matters to arise from examination of the situation in the countries mentioned above, it must be stressed that increasing weight is being laid on local and regional democracy in Europe. The subject is more and more frequently in the forefront of political concerns. Clear evidence to this effect is provided by the significant number of legislative reforms introduced in the countries concerned:

The European Charter of Local Self-Government still excites a great deal of interest. Seven Council of Europe member states ratified it during the period covered by this report – Romania, Russia and the United Kingdom in 1998, the Czech Republic (with many reservations) and Lithuania in 1999, and Albania and Slovakia in 2000. In Belgium, the ratification process is proving long and arduous. On 22 April 1999 the government of the Region of Brussels-Capital issued an order approving the Charter, making it the first component of the Belgian Federation to give its agreement, some 14 years after Belgium became one of the initial signatory states on 15 October 1985. The large number of new ratifications gives some idea of the importance of monitoring the Charter’s implementation in the years to come and of the corresponding efforts which will be required of the Congress.

The familiar question of municipal size and whether or not to merge municipalities continues to rear its head in a number of countries, although the myth of an optimum size is no longer fashionable.

The problem is most acutely felt in France. With 36,551 communes, the French metropolitan territory today has almost as many municipalities as all the other European Union member states put together. Of these communes, 1,087 have fewer than fifty inhabitants, 4,082 fewer than one hundred and 28,183 fewer than one thousand. There are thus only 1,739 communes where the population is greater than five thousand and 841 where it exceeds ten thousand. That municipal splintering is taken to such an extreme is the chief peculiarity of France, and this heritage remained unchallenged by the champions of decentralisation in the 1980s. The extraordinary expansion of intermunicipal co-operation is therefore unsurprising: in 1996 there were 14,614 single-purpose local authority consortia, 2,221 multiple-purpose consortia, 1,216 mixed consortia, 318 districts, ten metropolitan areas, 1,348 communities of municipalities (1999 figures) and four communities of towns, not counting the seven new conurbations set up in 1999. Institutionalisation has been France's way of responding to the problems of splintering into communes. The reluctance of local politicians vis-à-vis a development that might ultimately challenge the existence of many small communes can be overcome only if the state offers financial incentives to those communes willing to co-operate, but without making any threat to the principle of free choice of co-operation. Intermunicipal co-operation thus seems to have acquired a special character in France in passing from one century to the next (with an acceleration through the 1990s) and from a logic of association through the management of shared services to a federative, project-based rationale.

Nevertheless, the method of intermunicipal co-operation is neither without its drawbacks as regards democracy nor without risk as regards the piling up of administrative layers. While today it seems futile to try to continue the debate in France about the advisability of mergers by giving thought to the advantages of having a very large number of small communes (notably the involvement of a great many citizens in local political life, especially the 506,796 people, among a population of 60 million, who are local councillors) as well as the drawbacks (the artificial autonomy of entities which are too small, the exacerbation of competition between communes and the unequal distribution of both responsibilities and wealth), and while the dynamic process of intermunicipal co-operation, currently in full swing, ought to be allowed to take its course, there are clear shortcomings in the institutionalisation of this formula as an alternative to the grouping of communes. The classic issue is that of the democratic nature of intermunicipal co-operation, a question which presses all the more acutely in France for the fact that certain forms of establishment actually tend towards “super-municipalities”, since they already constitute a semi-tier of territorial administration over and above the municipal tier. France therefore cannot avoid discussing the democratisation of the most integrated forms of bodies for intermunicipal co-operation. What is more, the issue of relations between intermunicipal structures and their constituent communes will ultimately have to be addressed.

Mergers are also a concern in Estonia and the Czech Republic. In the latter, where over 80% of the 6,244 municipalities number fewer than one thousand inhabitants, the excessive splintering of municipalities is a topical matter to which solutions are actively being sought. The new law on municipalities, which is currently being examined, would require a minimum population of one thousand for all new municipalities.

Lastly, in common with many countries, the Netherlands faces certain difficulties, which in this case are seemingly insoluble, in administering cities where there is conflict between the central municipality and those around its periphery. A plan was put forward to create "urban provinces" by incorporating central and satellite municipalities into a single entity combining municipal and provincial powers, while dividing the central area into several smaller municipalities so as to prevent it from dominating the new province. Prudently, the plan was formulated in an outline law providing for a pilot scheme in Rotterdam, where it met with entrenched hostility from the central municipality’s population when the matter was put to a referendum.

As indicated above, the question of powers was the subject of a general report on political monitoring of the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which covered all Council of Europe member states on the basis of the replies given to a questionnaire by the members of the Congress’ group of experts.

It was especially difficult to evaluate local powers, and impossible to do so with any precision, because, with one exception, no state provided an exhaustive written list of the powers delegated to local authorities. However, two extremes can be identified. In the first situation, the local level has remained “traditional”, with authorities exercising powers directly linked to the management of a given area and the group interests of the persons living there. These functions correspond to the hard core of powers that the Charter terms “basic powers and responsibilities”: the administration of municipal land and property, public services (water, sanitation and transport), spatial planning, the environment, policing, public security, culture and leisure. At the opposite extreme are those countries in which local authorities are given exclusive or delegated responsibility for frequently onerous additional duties. The Charter calls these “powers and responsibilities for specific purposes”; the main sectors concerned are social welfare, health and education.

The relative burden of powers reflects the key differences in each country’s interpretation of what constitutes “local power”. In countries which keep to the “hard core”, local self-government is understood as being in conflict with the centralisation of the state, against which it must be protected. Since less expenditure is required, it can be borne by calling on traditional sources of revenue (primarily land tax). In countries where local authorities are tasked with important administrative duties, their position in the national scheme of things may be seen differently. Even they consider themselves as elements in a far wider whole which self-evidently – and by necessity, given the nature of their duties – co-operate closely with central government. The downside is that reasons of finance and equalisation generally place greater restrictions on local authorities’ room for manoeuvre. It does appear too much to ask for a full and precise written list of local authority powers. However, in order to safeguard local self-government most effectively, legislation in each area should clarify, sector by sector, the exact limits of the different responsibilities exercised by both central government and each level of authority concerned.

In-depth examination of the situation in France indicates that local powers remain a delicate matter in spite of the exceptionally clear current system of distribution in that country. In the 1980s, the aim behind decentralisation was to transfer blocks of responsibilities that were as homogeneous as possible to local and regional authorities. The method employed of using framework laws to list in precise detail the duties of the different tiers of territorial authority in relation to the state lends great clarity to the system of assigning powers. As a result, it is doubtless more difficult in France to have Parliament modify the powers of decentralised authorities without organising detailed debate on the matter, whereas in other countries legislation is frequently the first choice for managing the sector without the need to consider the repercussions for local government powers as a whole.

Most observers agree today that the aim of forming homogeneous blocks of responsibilities either has not been achieved or has proven futile in practice. Moreover, transferring powers without legislation and maintaining the traditional general clause establishing powers alongside specific allocations of responsibilities do nothing to clarify the system. Opinions on the system do however vary: some find it lacking in clarity and organisation, while others believe that complexity is part and parcel of a truly decentralised system and that the proliferation of initiatives reflects the new dynamism of the communes, départements and regions.

Generally speaking, as it is impossible in certain fields, such as that of spatial planning or economic development, to attain the impracticable ideal of homogeneity, solutions tend to be sought which would more harmoniously combine the powers as currently allocated through various forms of partnership. Without a doubt, the main influence on the initial allocation of powers is that of contractual agreements, not only between local authorities at the same level but also between different levels of government and with the state. It is worth considering more closely the significance of the widespread use of contracts, which has become so much more systematic since decentralisation began in the early 1980s that no comprehensive list is currently available in France of the many kinds of contract that can be drawn up, with an indication of their legal basis and objectives. The use of contracts cannot be called into question when it is nothing more than the necessarily concerted application by public institutions of their powers, which will in practice always remain complementary however sophisticated the power-sharing system, even in federal states that assert the exclusiveness of powers. Yet the procedure does not lead to homogeneity but encompasses a variety of processes whose significance varies widely. Contracts between authorities at the same level, such as contracts between regions, involve no risk of unequal relations in law and reflect a wish, or a need, to work together, or even the inappropriate nature of territorial divisions and the fact that territorial authorities do not come up to the critical size. The significance of contracts between authorities from different tiers merits investigation, since it assuredly varies according to the circumstances.

In the Czech Republic, the machinery of delegating powers to local authorities is used too extensively and seemingly in breach of Article 4 paragraph 4 of the Charter, which states that “powers given to local authorities shall normally be full and exclusive”. In the case of Moldova, the advisability of giving the regions overall responsibility for co-ordinating municipality activities is questionable. Should it prove necessary to co-ordinate certain such activities, it would indeed appear correct to entrust them directly to the regions; however, tasks which seem to require handling by local authorities must be protected against regional influence.

Like the issue of powers, that of local finance was addressed in the general report on political monitoring of the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which covered all Council of Europe member states.

The initial concern was an attempt to clarify the concepts used in the Charter. This is crucial in order to prevent ambiguities in comparisons between states from debasing evaluation. Own resources are taken to mean finance deriving from autonomous decisions by local authorities, which they can use as they choose and, in the case of taxation levels, they can adjust to meet their needs. Taxes which best meet this description are defined as exclusive; they include taxes which are the sole responsibility of the tier of government to which the authority concerned belongs, being collected by that tier alone. Shared taxes, which are those collected in their entirety by other tiers of government, may not be counted among local authorities’ own resources, since they more closely resemble a transfer than a tax. Lastly, joint taxes are those whose basis for assessment is shared with other authorities but whose rates can be changed by local authorities; while not exclusive taxes, they can be considered own resources.

On this basis, the Congress has indicated the shortcomings of local authority finance in Europe:

- the limited share of own resources deriving from genuine local taxation where local authorities are free to set tax rates: in only eight Council of Europe member states is the level of local authorities’ own resources equal to or greater than 50% of their total financial resources;

- the decline in exclusive and joint local taxation and the national and regional authority practice of replacing them with transfers or shared taxation;

- taxes collectable by local authorities are not the most lucrative. There is still too much emphasis on land and property taxes, while business taxation continues to decline in the name of free competition;

- the ratio of transfers to own resources is too high, a situation that is exacerbated in certain countries by the excessive number of subsidies in comparison with general appropriations;

- the lack in some countries of permanent criteria for the organisation and goals of equalisation and the discretionary nature of transfers from certain national or regional authorities;

- the instability and insecurity of local authority sources of finance, and the relative infrequency with which local authorities seek loans;

- national or regional authority control over local authority budgets: this sometimes hides prior supervision of the expediency of local authority decision-making, which is in breach of the Charter.

The Congress also looked into the extremely delicate matter of matching local authority financial resources to their responsibilities, a principle which is not clearly expressed in the legislation of member states and which it is left to the good offices of legislators and to the random nature of annual financial regulations to put into practice, save where obligations under the Charter are concerned. It is generally true that the financial means of European local authorities are inadequate for the responsibilities that they exercise. That a great many authorities are in financial difficulties is due to the number of situations in which responsibilities are transferred without compensation.

In addition to drawing up general comparative tables of the exact cost of exercising certain functions and the level of potential resources, governments should aim to develop systems whereby transparency is ensured whenever a change is made to the allocation of powers, so that local authorities and their representatives can provide effective oversight and be certain that each transfer of responsibilities is matched by an equivalent financial transfer. Such systems should be based on a legal principle established in law or in the Constitution which might be termed the “principle of connexity” and according to which each plan to transfer powers must be clearly offset by a corresponding source of finance. In practice, the solution to these problems is greatly dependent on the vigilance of local authorities and local authority associations themselves and on their opportunity of having a say in decisions which affect them. Possible solutions might include the setting up of joint central government-local authority committees to evaluate the current balance between resources and obligations. Where new taxes cannot be decentralised, local authorities should negotiate financial stability pacts with central government in order to achieve a certain degree of stability in local resources.

The situation with regard to local finance was also studied in great detail in the context of specific reports on three countries.

The situation of local finance in Germany, which has significantly declined in recent years, was the subject of a specific report devoted to this issue alone.

On average, own resources amount to around 50% of local expenditure, although this figure is considerably lower in the eastern Länder, where it lies between 13 and 37%. German local authorities’ own resources are sufficiently diverse, stable and flexible with regard to the economic situation. However, given that revenue from joint taxation makes up approximately half the total amount, the level of own resources is unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the Federation persists in introducing rules and regulations for the performance of functions which are a matter for local self-government, thereby depriving local authorities of virtually all discretionary power and violating Article 9 paragraph 2 of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, since there is no direct obligation on the Federation to provide funding for local government. The local authorities have thus been compelled to make significant cuts in the optional expenditure which is the real indicator of their financial autonomy. The financial situation of German local authorities is now critical; they must be granted adequate financial freedom of movement if they are to meet their obligations. To this end, the Congress has recommended:

- that an institutional committee be set up composed of representatives of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, municipalities, towns and districts, whose purpose would be to examine the financial circumstances of local authorities, propose measures to improve the situation and undertake evaluation on a permanent basis;

- that local taxation arrangements be strengthened in compliance with Article 28 paragraph 2 of the Constitution, especially in respect of taxes for which local authorities are empowered to set rates, and, as provided by Article 106 paragraph 5 of the Constitution, that local authorities be given the opportunity to make additional minor increases to income tax;

- that provisions concerning the “principle of connexity” be incorporated into the constitution of each Land on the models existing in Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg, which expressly state that financial compensation shall be commensurate with or adequate to the new responsibilities delegated to local authorities;

- that steps be taken, once the need for solidarity to establish German unity has become less pressing, to achieve a better balance between the demands of financial equalisation and the interests of the Länder and local authorities in a reasonable degree of financial autonomy;

- that those Länder which in practice offer an excessive number of special funds convert at least some of them into non-specific finance.

The resources of French territorial authorities break down as follows: 42% from exclusive taxation, 29% from transfers, 9% from loans, 8% from dues and prices, and 12% from other resources. This puts France well above the mean for Council of Europe member states in terms of territorial authorities' own taxation (25.7%) and well below the mean for transfers (49%). This situation, which is satisfactory from the standpoint of local self-government, is being progressively weakened by the paradox that local taxation is declining just as decentralisation is making progress. Local taxation is undergoing a veritable erosion in the wake of various measures adopted in the last two decades through annual finance legislation: reduction of the tax assessment base, tax relief, exemption for certain individuals and ceiling rates. The Congress encountered such measures during its fact-finding: some of the most important have now begun to take effect, such as the provision in the 1999 finance legislation that salaries would not count for the professional tax assessment base for five years from 1999 or the abolition of residential property tax at regional level, which the government announced in March 2000.

These measures are resulting in a move towards state control of local taxation, since the state compensates for financial losses caused by restrictions on local levies by making additional appropriations. At present, 25.5% of direct local taxes are covered by the state, making it the leading taxpayer. Such a trend is not without consequences for local self-government and democracy. Without entering into a debate about the equivalence of losses and compensation, which has been chipped away over the years, it is undeniable that the result is a decline in autonomy, leaving the authorities with ever decreasing freedom to raise their own revenue and ever decreasing means of handling new responsibilities which may come their way. Another result is a decline in local democracy in one respect traditionally considered fundamental in France: increasing state control over taxation challenges the link established by elections between the levying of taxes and political responsibility to the electorate. Moreover, one of the driving forces in the process of increasing state control would seem to have emerged, in the course of the debate over the state "treasure chest" revealed in 2000, as a desire to cut tax rates, with central government’s substantial fiscal revenue making it possible, through the communicating vessel principle, to finance the abolition of local and regional taxes. For example, the government has just announced the imminent suppression of the motor vehicle tax, which is however an important source of income for départements. While not wishing to dispute the legal reasoning underlying a series of measures which have doubtless all been adopted on laudable grounds, it would be desirable to break out of a pattern of annual adjustment through finance laws which do not provide an overview and take precious little account of territorial authorities' financial autonomy. France can no longer content itself with the claim that it is impossible to reform local taxation, the failings of which (it is archaic in that it is based on stocks rather than flows), above all when they may be attributed in part to central government (such as the inequity existing between land tax payers because the reassessment carried out in 1990 has still not been applied, with the result that assessment bases date from 1961 for non-built property and from 1970 for built property), cannot provide justification for its abolition, especially since a certain amount of financial autonomy is inherent in genuine decentralisation. It therefore seems inevitable that there will be a major debate on reforming local taxation with a view to guaranteeing its future; this would remedy one of the shortcomings of the decentralisation process of the 1980s.

It should first be noted that Macedonian municipalities are extremely short of the resources necessary for them adequately to exercise their responsibilities. Even when financed from local resources, fixed property and facilities such as administrative buildings, stadiums and swimming pools would appear to have been transferred to national control. Municipalities are also deprived of the right to draw up their own budgets, although this is the sine qua non for any degree of financial autonomy. Instead, budgets are set through state legislation, with the law on the ceiling for public consumer spending providing a list of the maximum expenditure permitted each local authority, and municipal councils must abide by the directives of the Ministry of Finance. Neither do municipalities have the right to set their own taxes, with the exception of a tax on the useable area of residential property and business premises.

At present, municipal budgets account for no more than one per cent of the country’s public spending. If, in order to bring this figure more into line with that of other states, a further one or two per cent is added in the form of special appropriations from central funds and specific municipal budgets for public service provision, the absolute maximum lies between 2 and 3%. Municipalities consequently enjoy very few powers and extremely limited financial means. The Ministry of Finance plans to increase municipal budgets by 10% a year during the coming years, meaning that municipalities’ share will rise next year from 1 to 1.1% and in ten years’ time will not greatly exceed 2%. This proposal is obviously unacceptable to the Congress, which would insist instead on far-reaching reforms.

Firstly, it was in 1986 that France converted its former regional public bodies into regions genuinely free of central control. Since then, the fate of the départements has repeatedly given rise to debate on the best means of territorial organisation at intermediate level. During recent months the Corsican question has lent special significance to the issue of regionalisation. In this connection it will be recalled that the Congress recommended in May 2000 that France seize the historic opportunity for reconciliation by granting Corsica similar legislative powers to those enjoyed by the majority of other island regions in the Mediterranean; however, the Congress also stressed that all regions must show the necessary loyalty to their mother countries, whose sovereignty and territorial integrity could not be called into question.

Two states provide examples of the trend towards autonomy in intermediate-level government, which frequently goes hand in hand with a clear increase in the territorial size of authorities at this level. Firstly, in the Czech Republic, the regions established by Constitutional Law No. 347 of 1997 should finally and effectively be in place on 1 January 2001. On that date, the fourteen regions, which have been demarcated according to regional policy preparatory to the country’s entry into the European Union, will take the place of the 77 districts that were mere outlying offices of national government. In Moldova it was decided that nine judets (regions) would replace the existing 37 raions (districts). Following autonomy for Taraklia (see below), the number of proposed judets was later increased to ten.

In contrast, no changes are planned in Finland, where the intermediate tier is organised in unique fashion. The 19 existing “regional councils” are in reality no more than intermunicipal associations comprising representatives of and financed by the local authorities concerned. Although this regionalisation in the form of intermunicipal co-operation, which is technical rather than political, currently operates to the satisfaction of all, it could in future evolve towards the introduction of genuinely autonomous authorities in line with the 1994 law on regional development.

Developments in Estonia are an exception to the rule described above. Since the abolition of self-governing counties in 1993, the intermediate level has consisted only of regional governors exercising decentralised state powers. Developments reminiscent of the situation in neighbouring Finland are however getting under way, with the incipient transfer of certain county powers to associations of municipalities.

The issue of minorities was studied mainly in the central and east European countries:

Attention should be drawn to the pioneering role played by the Netherlands in the protection of minority languages even before the country was among the first to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The Friesian language has for a long time had a very special status in the province of Friesland and the Netherlands have even recognised languages without a territory of their own, such as Yiddish and Romany.

As regards the period from 1999 to 2000 covered by this report, the procedure for appointing local executive organs poses a real political problem only in the Netherlands.

Mayors in the Netherlands are still appointed by the Crown (in practice the government represented by the Minister of the Interior) on the basis of a recommendation by the municipal council, which does not, however, have to be followed. A system of this kind does not exist only in the Netherlands, but it is specific to that country because mayors there are considered to act as neutral arbitrators, which is why they are normally chosen from outside the municipality to which they are appointed. While this system poses more problems in terms of the Charter of the Congress than of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, whose provisions on this point are open to interpretation, the fact remains that a few amendments to positive law could easily bring the Netherlands into line with the requirements of the Council of Europe treaties they have ratified. The debate on a bill tabled in parliament for the purpose was suspended during discussion of the conclusions of the Commission on “dual authority and democracy” (see above), but is expected to resume at the end of 2000.

Contrary to a widely held belief, a country’s small size is not an absolutely decisive criterion in assessing its local democracy needs. Even a very small country like San Marino recognises the need for real decentralisation, most recently in adopting the law of 24 February 1994 which made the appointment of the executive organs of small towns (castelli) more democratic. Despite this step forward, the Congress found that the giunte (assemblies) di castello, presided over by the capitani, remain institutionally weak bodies which manage a minimal proportion of public funds on a decentralised basis, perform advisory tasks in several areas and act as an interface between the citizens and central government institutions, without enjoying local self-government in the political sense of the term. Yet there do not appear to be any constitutional obstacles to strengthening a local government system which is still in its infancy by broadening the powers of the giunte di castello in matters of importance to local authorities. It is legally and should be politically possible to strike a balance, bringing local government organisation in San Marino more closely into line with the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government while bearing in mind the special features of this very long-standing republic.

9. Any gaps between positive changes in the relevant legislation and the realities of local self-government on the spot

Through on-the-spot research by members of its delegations, whose findings are an unrivalled source of information on the real situation in the countries concerned, the Congress has noted the gap that may sometimes occur between legal rules and the realities of local self-government. However satisfactory and commendable they may be, the legislative advances made by a country to comply with the requirements of the European Charter of Local Self-Government may nevertheless prove inadequate. This is a matter for acute concern in “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, where the 1995 Local Self-Government Act admittedly provides a framework that complies by and large with the requirements of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, but has in fact created weak local authorities with limited legal powers and still fewer practical responsibilities, and with very scant resources in an unfavourable political and economic context; as a result, they carry much less clout than the local representatives of the state apparatus in the same territorial unit.

This is also something of an issue in Moldova, where the Congress representatives who visited the country noted that the new regional institutions known as judets (see below) are still not really operational, several months after the elections. In financial terms they are still completely dependent on central government and some of them do not even have a finance department.

As already pointed out in the introduction to this report³, the Congress, on the basis of the observations set out in the specific reports on local and/or regional democracy in the member states and in the latest general report on political monitoring of the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, has addressed a number of recommendations to the states concerned, either directly or, in the case of the Charter, via the Committee of Ministers.

The representatives of the countries concerned continue to be invited to the Congress mini-sessions to present the measures taken to implement the Congress recommendations. This procedure, which is based on the principle of co-operation and is highly conducive to dialogue between the protagonists of local and regional democracy in Europe, has achieved significant results in terms of legislative reform and practice in this area in the countries concerned.

The recommendations on monitoring of the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government addressed to the Committee of Ministers were prepared in consultation with the Steering Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR) (which is also concerned with the Charter), in accordance with a procedure for very close co-operation based on mutual consultation. This procedure has secured substantial results in encouraging the countries concerned to accept and actually apply the provisions of the Charter, especially because it has established ongoing dialogue between those dealing with local and regional democracy in the Organisation.

Besides the above-mentioned recommendations, the Congress adopted a number of resolutions⁴ in 1999 and 2000. In these texts, which are also conclusions on the subject, the Congress:

a. expressed its profound concern at the inadequate implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, especially regarding the financial resources of local authorities and the application of the subsidiarity principle;

b. expressed the wish to hold an international conference for representatives of national judicial authorities, to discuss the legal conditions for implementing the provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government in the ratifying countries;

c. stated that safeguards for the principle of subsidiarity at all levels of government would be incomplete until the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted the draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government;

d. considered that the adoption of the European Charter of Regional Self-Government would introduce a European system of legal and political safeguards for local and regional government in the Europe of the new millenium;

e. expressed the intention of conducting a special study to look into the question of whether the appointment of heads of local authority executives is compatible with the standards established in the European Charter of Local Self-Government;

f. said that it was prepared to assist the states to which its recommendations were addressed in carrying out their reforms in the area of local and regional democracy, where appropriate, by arranging seminars and conferences designed to facilitate decision-making or, at the request of the authorities concerned, by observing local and/or regional elections;

g. expressed its willingness to provide assistance and advice to strengthen associations representing local and regional authorities in the central and east European countries concerned in matters of transfrontier and interterritorial co-operation.

¹ At its 6^th Session, the Congress considered reports and adopted related recommendations and/or resolutions in respect of the following countries: Finland (report CPR (6) 2 Part II and Recommendation 66 (1999)), Germany (report CPL (6) 3 Part II and Recommendation 64 (1999)), the Netherlands (report CG (6) 4 Part II revised, Recommendation 55 (1999) and Resolution 77 (1999)) and San Marino (report CPL (6) 4 Part II, Recommendation 63 (1999) and Resolution 82 (1999)).At its 7^th Session, the Congress considered reports and adopted related recommendations and/or resolutions in respect of the following countries: the Czech Republic (report CG (7) 4 Part II, Recommendation 77 (2000) and Resolution 93 (2000)), Estonia (report CPL (7) 7 Part II and Recommendation 81 (2000)), France (report CG (7) 7 Part II, Recommendation 78 (2000) and Resolution 94 (2000)), “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (report CPL (7) 8 Part II, Recommendation 82 (2000) and Resolution 100 (2000)) and Moldova (report CPR (7) 4 Part II, Recommendation 84 (2000) and Resolution 103 (2000)).

² The statements by the representatives of these countries can be found in the minutes of the meetings in question: documents (CG/CP (6) PV 2) and (CG/CP (6) PV 3 prov. Part 2)