The Congress,

Bearing in mind the proposal of the Chamber of Regions,

1. Having regard to the report presented by Mr Kieres, Vice-President on the evaluation of regionalisation in central Europe, especially in Poland and its conclusions;

2. Recalling the commitment of the Congress and particularly of the Chamber of Regions, for the creation and the implementation of local and regional democratic structures in Europe, especially in the new member countries as well as in the countries being candidate for admission to the Council of Europe and its different actions of technical assistance in this field;

3. Considering the report of Mr Claude Haegi presented in 1999 on the current state of, and prospects for, regionalisation in Europe and the Resolution 83 (1999) and Recommendation 65 (1999) concerning the same subject;

4. Underlining the importance that represent the experience made by Poland during the territorial reforms creating regional structures and the possibilities to transmit this experience to other countries envisaging the organisation of such reforms;

5. Hoping that other countries in transition can profit of this experiences allowing them to avoid errors and to organise with success the necessary steps for administrative and territorial reforms;

Invite the Bureau to charge its competent committee

6. To continue systematically its assistance and the exchange of experience between territorial communities and national administrations of countries which have to solve during the administrative reforms problems resulting from the creation and the functioning of regional communities or authorities;

7. To study possibilities to encourage specific training programs on regionalisation for officials of the administrations of those countries which envisage to start administrative and territorial reforms and to implement those programs in co-operation with national and regional administrative training institutions and the specialised NGOs;

8. To bring together European specialised research institutes in the field of regionalisation with the view to create a network of co-operation and coordination for the promotion of regionalisation in Europe and for making known this experience at global level and to associate in this respect the NGOs, the representatives of the civil society as well as representatives of national and regional administrations.