Rapporteur:
Suvi RIHTNIEMI (Finland)

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EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

INTRODUCTION

The 12^th European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT), held in Hanover on 7-8 September 2000, represented the opportunity for national, regional and local authorities to finalize some activities carried out by the Council of Europe in the field of spatial/regional planning. Very recently, the Congress, together with the Parliamentary Assembly, established very close co-operation with the Committee of Senior Officials responsible for the preparation of the ministerial conferences. The Congress followed the national governmental activities step by step and contributed to the preparation of the final texts adopted by the Ministers in Hanover.

During the ministerial conference the Congress and the German Presidency of the CEMAT were expecting, respectively, the Ministers’ consent for the adoption of the Draft European Outline Convention on Mountain Regions and an agreement for the preparation of a framework convention on the sustainable development of the European continent. A consent to the adoption of these instruments was not given and the 12th CEMAT resulted in the adoption of two resolutions and of the “Guiding Principles for a Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent” under the form of a non binding instrument.

Although this last text approved in Hanover is not legally binding, it has a considerable value and can be considered as reference a document to be implemented at national, regional and local level.

1. The Congress’ vision of regional/spatial planning as a contribution to the ministerial Conference.

During the preparatory activities¹ that led to the final ministerial Conference, the Congress indicated some political principles to be developed. The Congress expressed the need, among others, of reinforcing the research of a sustainable development based on the quality of life (taking into account the advantages but also the risks of globalisation), increasing the use of the practice of subsidiarity and of transfrontier co-operation and recognizing the specificity of mountain regions.

As emphasised in the European Regional/Spatial Planning Charter, “Regional/spatial planning gives geographical expression to the economic, social, cultural and ecological policies of society”. The activities of the Working Group on the “New Prospects for Regional/ Spatial Planning Policy in the Greater Europe”, carried out by the Committee on Sustainable Development have been in fact centred on the improvement of the means allowing the population in Europe to achieve an acceptable standard of living in relation to the constraints and potential of the areas where they live. The Committee considered that spatial planning was concerned with where people shall live, how they shall work, which services they shall benefit of, how they shall move from one territory to another and, above all, how they shall use the land - which is a non-renewable resource - and which problems they shall leave as “heritage” to future generations.

For the Committee on Sustainable Development human beings must be put at the base of the political analysis, taking into account the fact that a geographical space is where individuals live their lives and function socially, culturally and economically. The underlying idea was to consider the importance of economic competitiveness of the regions while avoiding confining the analysis only to economic considerations. Therefore the Committee did not want to limit its observations to economic aspects related to spatial planning. In particular it considered that methods and criteria for coping with the medium-term and long-term effects of globalisation should be examined much more closely. In this respect, sustainable development has been considered as an imperative that reconciles the protection of the global environment with the satisfaction of people’s basic aspirations. The aim is to try to improve the quality of life of the population through an accurate planning at local and regional level. Spatial planning is in fact concerned with both the protection of the environment and the distribution of economic and social activities.

Protecting the conditions in which people live - whether permanently or temporarily – has been considered by the Committee to be a major challenge but this requires appropriate measures, which in themselves can be tools for optimal patterning of human settlement and activity. As said in 1961 by Walter Hallstein, first President of the Commission of the European Economic Community: “European growth cannot be pursued by forcing millions of men and women to abandon their region of origin, to cut all their social relations and, in order to find better living conditions, to emigrate in highly populated zones”.

It has also been considered that the problems of spatial reorganisation, with their particular impact on jobs and population movement, will increasingly affect the ways that people live and exercise their rights. For local and regional authorities, regional/spatial planning means striking a balance between different policies in order to focus on the common aim of seeking to satisfy people’s aspirations without neglecting disadvantaged groups - such as the unemployed, women and young people. The environment must be protected even though it is important to guarantee economic competitiveness which works through a countrywide/continent-wide web of small and medium-sized companies. Likewise, efforts should be made to harmonise living standards without erasing cultural identity, and taking into account the impact on the economy at local and regional level.

In the view of the Committee, organising the space is a matter that concerns the European regions and has to be dealt with either by the people directly or through the people’s elected representatives; this applies no less to overall policy than to measures affecting daily life. According to the principle of subsidiarity, the continent must be organised at the closest possible level to the public, in a spirit of mutual responsibility. Central governments alone cannot direct Europe’s regional and spatial development and local and regional authorities have a key part to play.

For this purpose, in the field of Regional/spatial planning, transfrontier and inter-regional co-operation have been considered key means of promoting European integration. They can help areas on either side of borders (considering that these last are increasingly artificial) by taking advantage of their complementarity.

As already stressed by the Congress during the preparatory activities for the Ministerial Conference, “geographical distance must be overcome and spatial planning must ensure that axes of communication connect up rather than divide the European continent, in order to bring people together”. The Committee has in fact supported the idea of developing planning networks based on “corridors of communication”; these corridors must serve the whole of Europe so as to create planning and development networks that respect the environment in which they operate.

Taking into account these considerations, the vision of the Congress reflects concerns that have to do with the Council of Europe’s fundamental principles. The Congress’ proposal is to make spatial planning principles an expression of human rights in a spatial-planning context; human rights are conceived as including the right for every European citizen to benefit from acceptable living conditions and to live in the country of his/her choice.

2. The draft European Outline Convention on Mountain Regions

In Europe, mountain regions cover more than a million km, and fulfil some very important functions of general interest, particularly of an environmental, economic, social, political and cultural nature. Each of Europe’s mountain regions has its own specific problems which are largely due to structural and institutional factors. This makes it difficult to devise common strategies to promote sustainable development in these areas and thereby improve the quality of life of their inhabitants. The lack of proper policies - or the existence of inconsistent, ill-co-ordinated policies - can cause the decline of these regions, leading their inhabitants to desert them, with serious consequences for the ecological and social equilibrium of the whole European continent.

For these reasons and given the absence of a European legal instrument in this field, the Congress prepared a draft European Outline Convention on Mountain Regions². The draft Convention aims in fact to meet specific needs of mountain populations and ensure the sustainable development of mountain regions by taking into account, in particular, their environmental and economic context.

Finally the Committee on Sustainable Development has also emphasized that the floods and related natural disasters that Europe is experiencing, very often originate in mountain areas. Abandoning the mountains and neglecting the control of watercourses at their origin is one of the main cause of flooding and inundations. For this reason a specific reference on this analysis is made in the draft recommendation.

The Hanover Conference gave the Congress the opportunity to discuss the possible adoption of this draft Convention. Mr Bucci and Mr Vierin, who represented the Committee, wanted to obtain from the Ministers a clear-cut political response from the Ministers to the expectations of representatives of the inhabitants of mountain regions. Unfortunately there were no concrete results from the discussions in Hanover. The Ministers were not able to give a unanimous positive opinion on the draft outline convention. As a consequence the Congress representatives expressed their bitter disappointment as the Ministers decided not to pronounce themselves in favour of the draft Convention, despite the proposal made by the elected bodies of the Council of Europe expressing the aspirations of European citizens and their regional authorities. The feeling of the participants in Hanover was that there was no opposition to any of the convention’s individual provisions, but that there was a general reluctance to adopt any binding legal instrument.³

The CLRAE still has expectations that the draft outline convention can be finalised; especially if one considers that other international organisations approached the issue of mountain regions by studying an initiative to draw up international conventions on the Carpathians and the Caucasus. We have to remember that the Congress has always emphasised the need to adopt an international legal instrument, precisely to assist, in particular, the countries of central and eastern Europe which cannot benefit from the provisions of the “Alpine Convention”, which applies only to Alpine regions.

We still think that the adoption of the draft convention could enable governments to draw up national policies for the sustainable development of mountain regions. The Committee on Sustainable Development of the Chamber of Regions is ready to continue supporting mountain regions in general and the adoption of the draft convention in particular. With regard to the programme of activities of the Congress, the Committee has decided to consult the inhabitants of mountain regions and continue to reaffirm the importance of adopting the draft outline convention by holding a conference on the convention in the Carpathian region in 2003.

3. Hanover’s outcome

Even though the 12^th CEMAT did not give its consent for the finalisation of binding instruments (under the form of frame-work conventions) the Ministers in Hanover adopted 3 major texts: a “10 points programme for greater cohesion among the Regions of Europe”, a “Resolution on the organization of the 13^th session of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for regional planning” – both texts are appended to the present report - and the “Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent”. These texts took into account the contribution and the priorities expressed by the Congress.

The Ministers recognized that social cohesion in Europe has to be accompanied by sustainable spatial development policies that bring the social as well as the economic requirements to be met by the territory into line with its ecological and cultural functions. They stressed the importance of strengthening trans-European, interregional and transfrontier co-operation in the field of spatial development especially between the countries of Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. They also recognized the importance of establishing regional governmental and administrative bodies that can allow better spatial integration of the various regions in Europe.

Also the “Guiding Principles for sustainable spatial development of the European Continent” took into account the relevant activities of the Congress in the field of continental spatial development policy and stressed the importance of transfrontier, interregional and transnational co-operation. An explicit reference has been made to the fact that “a coherent strategy for integrated and regionally balanced development of our continent, while based on the principles of subsidiarity and reciprocity, strengthens competition, co-operation and solidarity among local and regional authorities across borders, thereby making a contribution to the democratic stability in Europe”.

As a whole, the texts adopted in Hanover took into account the ideas and proposals expressed by the Congress, with the exception of the proposal for adopting the draft Outline Convention on Mountain Regions.

4. Proposals for future activities - the draft recommendation and resolution of the Congress

Coherently with the activities carried out so far, the Committee on Sustainable Development of the Congress wished to propose a recommendation⁴ to the Committee of Ministers in order to further the co-operation with the intergovernmental sector in the field of spatial planning. In this respect the draft recommendation of the Congress sets out some operational proposals for future activities of the Council of Europe in the field of spatial/regional planning. Some concrete priority actions for the future while implementing the “Guiding Principles” are recommended:

- in the field of landscape protection, the encouragement of the signature and ratification of the European Landscape Convention;
- concerning rural areas, the preparation of guiding principles for sustainable rural development;
- for mountain regions, the preparation of a study on the consequences of abandoning and neglecting mountain areas;
- for redundant industrial sites, the elaboration of a project concerning the re-valorisation of abandoned areas in the perspective of sustainable development.

As far as the European Landscape Convention is concerned, we have to remember that the first draft of this convention was prepared in 1997 by the Congress, which subsequently promoted afterwards its final adoption. While preparing this convention the Congress considered that the European populations wanted policies and instruments affecting national territory to take account of their wishes regarding the quality of their surroundings.

As mentioned in the explanatory report of the convention, “ landscape is the concern of all and lends itself to democratic treatment, particularly at local and regional level”. If people are given an active role in decision-making on landscape, they are more likely to identify with the areas and towns where they spend their working and leisure time. If they have more influence on their surroundings, they will be able to reinforce local and regional identity and distinctiveness and this will bring rewards in terms of individual, social and cultural fulfilment. This in turn may help to promote the sustainable development of the area concerned, as the quality of landscape has an important bearing on the success of economic and social initiatives, whether public or private.

The general purpose of the Convention is to encourage public authorities to adopt policies and measures at local, regional, national and international level for protecting, managing and planning landscapes throughout Europe so as to maintain and improve landscape quality and bring the public, institutions and local and regional authorities to recognise the value and importance of landscape and to take part in related public decisions.

This is why the recommendation, submitted to the Congress’ approval to-day, stresses the importance of encouraging the signature and ratification of this convention.

In the Recommendation, the Congress also asks the European Union to launch a training programme for Central and Eastern European local and regional authorities in order to ensure a transfer of know-how in the field of spatial planning policies.

In the draft resolution⁵ the Committee on Sustainable Development wishes to make available to the public at local and regional level; the suggestions contained in the “Guiding Principles” in order to facilitate an integrated spatial planning of the European continent. According to the resolution, this document will be forwarded to local and regional authorities via the Congress.

Finally, following the wishes expressed by the Ministers in Hanover, the Committee on Sustainable Development will accept to continue its co-operation with the representatives of the national governments in the field of spatial planning. For this purpose, a Forum will be organized next year together with the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Senior Officials of the CEMAT. The purpose of this Forum will be the implementation of the decisions taken in Hanover and the preparation of the next ministerial conference to be held in Slovenia in 2003.

CONCLUSION

The Congress’ vision of spatial planning is based on the idea that it is essential to improve the quality of life of the citizens and ensure a balanced development of the regions, a rational land use and responsible resource management and environmental protection.

We feel that the respect of the decisions taken in Hanover, namely the implementation of the “Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent”, should pay attention to the special problems of some regions, such as mountain regions, rural areas, coastal and insular regions and border regions. It is equally important that the implementation of the “Guiding Principles” refers directly to Council of Europe instruments and activities, such as the European Landscape Convention, and to the reports adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly and by the Congress.

The Congress is ready to contribute to spatial development in Europe and meet the specific needs of its regions, particularly in central and eastern Europe. For this purpose it has been suggested to increase the initiatives for strengthening transfrontier and inter-regional co-operation.

Concerning spatial planning policies, the confrontation and exchange of views between national, regional and local authorities -which is essential in this field – has proved to be satisfactory. For this reason the Congress should be ready to give full support to future activities of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning.

APPENDIX

Resolutions adopted at the issue of the 12th European Conference of Ministers Responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT) Hanover 7-8 September 2000

RESOLUTION 1

A 10-point Programme for greater cohesion among the Regions of Europe

We, the Ministers of the states of the Council of Europe attending the 12^th Session of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning in Hanover on 7 and 8 September 2000, have discussed, the contribution that spatial develop-ment policy can make towards achieving the goal of social cohesion in Europe.

We wish to thank the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe for their participation and for their contribution, in particular for the work carried out concerning the mountain regions.

- We believe that social cohesion in Europe, which was defined as one of the main objectives of the Council of Europe by the Heads of state and government of our Member States at their second summit on 10/11 October 1997, has to be accompanied by sustainable spatial development policies that bring the social as well as the economic requirements to be met by the territory into line with its ecological and cultural functions;

- We consider that one of the aims of the Council of Europe is to strengthen local and regional democracy in Europe by means of a territorially more balanced development of our continent;

- We consider the Council of Europe as the European organization in which all the states of Europe can cooperate on the basis of equal rights and consider the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning and its Committee to be a suitable political body to contribute to the coordination of common, Europe-wide territorial development goals and strategies;

- We are convinced that the trans-European, interregional and transfrontier cooperation between states, regional authorities and local authorities in the sphere of spatial development has to be strengthened, especially between the countries of West Europe and Central and East Europe in order to ensure the social and territorial cohesion of the European continent as a whole.

The results of our Conference are as follows:

1. We consider the adopted document entitled “Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent” to be:

- a major contribution for implementation of the strategy of social cohesion adopted at the second summit of Heads of state and government in 1997;

- a policy framework document which takes into account relevant activities of the Council of Europe and its bodies, and in particular the work of its Parliamentary Assembly and its Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, in the field of continental spatial development policy and which could contribute to strengthen the European integration process by means of transfrontier, inter-regional and transnational co-operation;

- a coherent strategy for the integrated and regionally balanced development of our continent, while based on the principles of subsidiarity and reciprocity, strengthens competitiveness, cooperation and solidarity among local and regional authorities across borders, thereby making a contribution to the democratic stability in Europe.

2. We recommend to our national and regional authorities that

- the “Guiding Principles” be used as a basis for national regional planning and spatial development measures;

- the “Guiding Principles” be implemented in national and international spatial development projects as appropriate;

- the cooperation with the Central, Eastern and South-eastern European states undergoing reforms to help them establish regional governmental and administrative bodies be continued and intensified in order to facilitate better spatial integration of the various regions of Europe.

3. We welcome

- the progress made in coordinating common spatial development goals and strategies in the European Union (ESDP) as well as regional cooperation mechanisms, the Baltic Sea region (VASAB 2010), the North Sea region (NorVision) and in Central and South-eastern Europe (VISION PLANET) and the Mediterranean region (MED-OCC and ARCHIMED) as well as the regional cooperation mechanisms (e.g. Central European Initiative, Black Sea Economic Cooperation Council, Baltic States Council).

4. We agree

- to cooperate in concrete spatial development projects in the INTERREG III B cooperation areas and call for all member States of the Council of Europe, regardless of whether they wish to accede to the European Union or not, to be included in the spatial development cooperation among EU Member States. This also applies to cooperation in the sphere of spatial research;

- to continue the project forum launched by Germany within the framework of the INTERREG activities.

5. We call on

- the European Union to revise the current regulations governing project
cooperation between the INTERREG initiatives and the PHARE and TACIS programmes in order to facilitate cooperation that is better coordinated,

- the non Member States of the EU explore, at the same time, their own possibilities of achieving better cooperation between the programme concerned.

6. We suggest

- that the States on the Black Sea and in the Euro-Mediterranean region should cooperate on appropriate future-oriented spatial development visions, based on the Guiding Principles document.

7. We stress

- that the speedy development and implementation of the pan-European transport network (especially the 10 Pan-European Transport Corridors), as an indispensable prerequisite for good accessibility of large areas across the entire continent, has to be expedited, and point out that the agreements reached on the shape of the networks should, if necessary,
be reviewed and augmented taking sustainable spatial development and environmental aspects into in account,

- that the dialogue between the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT) and European Institutions, especially the European Commission, and international Organizations such as the OECD and the UN institutions (ECE/CSD) on spatial development issues should be intensified, both within Europe and beyond its borders, and that the division of responsibilities among these institutions should be defined more clearly in order to avoid a duplication of activities.

8. We request

- the European funding institutions to apply the Guiding Principles document as a wider basis of information when taking decisions on the provision of assistance to spatial development projects.

9. We invite the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe

- to contribute to the implementation of the “Guiding Principles”, in particular through, the Council of Europe instruments,

- to take into account the Guiding Principles document and its integrated approach for decision-making in discussions and votes in the Committee of Ministers on projects with a spatial impact,

- to maintain in the inter-governmental programme of the Organisation the activities of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT),

- to start immediately a training programme in order to help regional and local planning authorities in the new member States of the Council of Europe, perform as well as possible the tasks under their competence,

- to convert the Committee of Senior Officials into a steering Committee.

10. We call on the local and regional authorities of Europe

- to support the efforts being made by the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning to achieve regionally balanced sustainable development in Europe, applying the principles of partnership and subsidiarity.

We will forward the results of our conference to our governments and parliaments and make them available to the public.

RESOLUTION 2 on the organisation of the 13^th session of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning

The Ministers taking part in the 12^th session of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning

· express their heartfelt thanks to the German Government for having organised the 12^th session and for its kind hospitality;

· consider that it is desirable, from an operational and rational point of view, for the same plenary Committee to be responsible both for preparing the ministerial sessions and for implementing any intergovernmental programme of activities relating to sustainable regional development across Europe;

· consider that no spatial development regional planning and country side cohesion can be promoted and implemented without the active involvement of national, regional and local representations;

· are pleased to accept the offer from the Slovenian Government to host the 13^th session of their Conference in Ljubljana in 2003;

· decide that the theme of their 13^th session will be:

Implementation of strategies and visions for sustainable spatial development of the European continent

instruct the Committee of Senior Officials:

i. to make the necessary arrangements to prepare the 13^th session and to ensure implementation of the resolutions adopted at the 12^th session;

ii. to organise before the next ministerial Conference a Forum with the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe in order to have the views of elected national, regional and local representatives on the implementation of the decisions taken at the 12^th session of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning and on the main topics of the theme to be discussed at the next session;

iii. to continue to formulate on the basis of the „Guiding Principles“ concrete and sustainable solutions and policies aimed at a better balanced development and territorial cohesion of the European continent;

iv. to foster transnational and interregional cooperation by carrying out development projects supported by EU instruments and international financial institutes and to pay special attention to rural regions, mountain areas and river catchment areas and Mediterranean regions. We ask the Committee of Senior Officials to present concrete results or evaluations at the next CEMAT Conference.

ask the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to continue providing the Conference Secretariat with the resources needed in order to organise the next session and do the work required between session.
¹ See CLRAE Recommendation 72 (2000) containing an opinion on the "Guiding principles for sustainable spatial development of the European continent", in preparation for the 12th European Conference of Ministers responsible for regional planning.
² . The draft Outline Convention on Mountain Regions was first submitted to local, regional and national authorities, NGOs and experts and was then approved by the Plenary Session of the Congress last year in Recommendation (75) 2000.
³ Finally, the Congress also analysed the compatibility of the draft Outline Convention on Mountain Regions with other existing international legal instruments (in particular, the “Alpine Convention”) and its possible future incorporation into international environmental law. But in spite of the Congress’ efforts, on 14th March 2001, the Committee of Ministers did not fulfil the request for adoption of the convention, limiting their decision to a recall of the reference on mountain regions made in the “Guiding principles” (which is itself a non-binding instrument).
⁴ The draft recommendation was been amended and adopted unanimously during the plenary meeting of the Committee on Sustainable Development on 30 March 2001.
⁵ The draft resolution was adopted unanimously during the plenary meeting of the Committee on Sustainable Development, on 30 March 2001.