Rapporteurs 
Mr Claude HAEGI (Switzerland) and Mr Yavuz MILDON (Turkey)

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EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

Introduction

The Skopje Forum, held from 16 to 18 November 2000, followed on the economic forums previously organised since 1996¹ by the CLRAE, in co-operation with the Foundation for the Economy and Sustainable Development of the Regions of Europe (FEDRE).

It differed from the other six in the series, however, by being held under the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, to which it was in fact the Congress’s most significant contribution in 2000.

Preparations for the Forum

Unlike the first six Economic Forums, which were organised by the CLRAE’s Chamber of Regions and open to regions alone, the Skopje Forum was also open to municipalities.

Responsibility for preparing it was accordingly entrusted, as requested by the CLRAE Bureau (at its meeting in Nantes on 25-26 October 1999), to a joint Congress group, comprising members of the former working groups on urban policies (Chamber of Local Authorities) and social cohesion and the economic development of regions (Chamber of Regions).

This group held its first meeting in Strasbourg on 14 April 2000 (with Mr Coifan in the chair and Mr Mildon as Vice-Chair), and its second in Skopje on 6 June 2000 (with Mr Mildon in the chair). The second meeting, held in the host country itself, gave it an opportunity to work out a detailed draft programme for the Forum with the Macedonian authorities, taking due account of the priorities set by the Congress and of political developments in the Balkans. It also allowed the group to explore the facilities available in Skopje for an event of this kind.

The holding of local elections in various south-east European countries in autumn 2000 meant that the date of the Forum could be set only at a late stage – which made it difficult for some Congress members to attend, but did not affect the proceedings as a whole.

The Forum followed in the wake of the assessment of the first six forums carried out by the Congress in March 2000 and given formal expression in Resolution 88 (2000), adopted by the Standing Committee on 2 March 2000².

In that resolution, the Congress:

noted that the forums had constantly pursued the aim “of promoting east/west partnerships at local and regional level with a view to sustainable development”;

asked regional authorities in particular to make known their “needs regarding socio-economic partnerships”.

The Skopje Forum and the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe

The Forum’s chief aim was to develop technical partnerships with towns and regions in south-east Europe, but it was also a tangible means of implementing one of the main projects which the Council of Europe put forward in the Action Plan approved at the forum on decentralisation, democracy and stability in south-east Europe, held in Bucharest on 23-24 February 2000 under the Stability Pact. In October 1999, the Council had in fact been given the task of “sponsoring” the Task Force on Good Governance³ set up under Stability Pact Working Table I on Democratisation and Human Rights.

The Congress had already implicitly supported this project (submitted in the Action Plan under the strategy objective “Promoting partnerships between towns and regions”) at its seventh plenary session in May 2000, when it adopted Recommendation 74 (2000) on the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe: specific projects on local democracy and transfrontier co-operation, based on a report presented by Alain Chénard, on 24 May 2000.

In this recommendation – on which the Committee of Ministers has yet to comment - the Congress expressed its dismay at the widespread, if not total, failure of governments and international/European financial institutions (“the donors”) to provide financial backing for the major projects (approved in Bucharest) designed to promote local democracy in south-east Europe.

In response to this appeal and some other approaches to governments and donors, several countries have since made voluntary contributions to enable the Council of Europe to launch a few of the priority projects embodied in the Action Plan to strengthen local democracy and stability in south-eastern Europe.

The Forum, which was organised by the Congress with the help of the Skopje city authorities and the FEDRE, benefited from a financial contribution from the Belgian Government – for which the rapporteurs wish to thank it.

The Skopje Forum: a continuation of the CLRAE’s efforts to promote partnerships with south-east European towns and regions

In the last few years, the Congress has taken a series of initiatives to encourage towns and regions, and also associations of local and regional authorities, in all parts of Europe to help towns and cities in south-east Europe by setting up partnerships with them. We should like to look back briefly at some of the main ones, in order to show how the Skopje Forum drew on the experience gained and the many contacts made in the course of those efforts:

1. In April 1999, the Congress President issued a number of appeals, calling on European municipalities and regions to set up partnerships to help their counterparts in south-east Europe - particularly in Albania, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Montenegro - to deal with the problems of refugees and displaced persons. The donations received helped to rebuild schools and hospitals in Kosovo, and to promote partnerships with a number of towns and cities in Albania, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.

The Congress was already aware at this stage that building partnerships was a long-term undertaking, involved complex procedures and required formal decisions from various political authorities. In launching these early initiatives, it co-operated with a number of NGOs active in this field, and the working relations established have since proved very useful in pursuing and adjusting its activities.

2. The CLRAE also supported the Association of Free Towns of Serbia before the new government took over in autumn 2000, and has also backed the Local Democracy Agency (LDA) in Subotica (northern Serbia). It has given the Association of Municipalities in Montenegro observer status with the Chamber of Local Authorities, and has helped various national agencies to set up partnerships with towns and cities in Serbia and Montenegro. The initial contacts made in 1999 were subsequently taken further, sometimes producing results a great deal later. For example, the CLRAE’s first contacts with Serbian municipalities in 1999 paved the way for its decision, in February 2001, to open an LDA in Niksic (Montenegro).

3. Following its President’s appeals, the Congress has also tried to give training for local and regional government staff and elected representatives in south-east Europe its backing. Specifically, it has appointed a co-ordinator to the Local Authority Staff Training College in Kosovo, and has exerted itself to help ensure that the material and technical aid offered by numerous European municipalities and regions, particularly to Kosovo in 1999, gets through effectively.

4. It has also played an active role at several conferences and seminars organised for the purpose of promoting partnerships with towns and cities in south-east Europe. The chief of these include:

As part of the Bratislava Process, the 2nd forum on the future of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (workshop on local authorities, Strasbourg, 21-22 November 1999).

As part of the Royaumont Process (subsequently incorporated into the Stability Pact), the Conference held in Bled (Slovenia) on 1-2 December 1999, which led to the adoption of an action plan for the development of local authorities in south-east Europe (since implemented by Eurocities).

4.3 A Round Table for the establishment of partnerships with towns in Serbia and Montenegro, which the Congress itself organised in Budapest on 20 December 1999. This followed on Recommendation 58 (1999) on the crisis in Kosovo, which it had adopted on 17 June 1999, and was attended by over 80 local authority representatives from Serbia and Montenegro, association representatives and Congress members. It gave the representatives of democratic municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro an international platform, and it also gave elected representatives from other parts of Europe a chance to find out more about the needs and the situation of their counterparts in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Meetings of this kind have proved a very useful means of supporting the forces of democracy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and tackling issues of major importance for the future, such as the drafting of new laws and the preparation of elections. They have also shown that inter-town partnerships can do much to make everyday life better for the people involved, provided that they lead to specific projects and meet specific technical or financial aid requirements.

Several partnerships were actually launched at the Round Table, and the representatives of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia identified a number of specific areas where aid was needed (e.g. humanitarian aid, nursery facilities and public transport). They also complained, however, that aid was arriving too slowly, that the large number of partners involved caused problems, and that the media were not getting enough money.

4.4 Particular mention should be made of the Szeged Process (named after a town in southern Hungary). The Congress has been closely involved in this process, which has played a significant role in supporting free towns in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It contributed to the first and second conferences, held in Szeged on 8-9 October 1999 and 23-24 March 2000. The process is linked to the Stability Pact, particularly in terms of aims and working methods. Its future role is currently being redefined under the Pact, in the light of political developments in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in late 2000. A third conference is scheduled for Szeged on 23-24 March 2001, and the Congress has been invited to attend.

The Congress was also represented at the Consultative Forum with Yugoslav Municipalities, organised in Belgrade on 13-14 November 2000 by the Standing Conference of Yugoslav Towns and Municipalities, the Hungarian Government (co-sponsor of the Szeged Process) and the Stability Pact Office, in association with the Belgrade city authorities. This important political event took place a few days before the Skopje Forum, which discussed and took extensive account of it.

4.6 These events - and others organised, in particular, by the European Union or national associations of local authorities⁴, with which the Congress was associated in 2000 - enabled the members and the Secretariat to build up a network of contacts, which helped them to plan the programme for the Skopje Forum and bring together the people mainly involved in promoting partnerships with towns and regions in south-east Europe.

Aims of the Forum

The Skopje Forum was both the seventh in the series of economic forums organised by the Congress and in effect the “forum” proposed by the Council of Europe as a contribution to the Stability Pact, the aim being to promote partnerships between local and regional authorities as a vital means of strengthening local democracy.

Following the autumn 2000 local elections in “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, and the cantonal elections in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Forum was designed to encourage more west European towns and regions to set up technical partnerships and twinning schemes with their counterparts in south-east Europe, involving the business world in these initiatives.

Other aims were:

to give local and regional authorities in south-east Europe an opportunity to state their problems and needs;

to encourage the pooling of expertise and ideas, particularly on training for local and regional government staff and elected representatives;

to encourage the development of bilateral and trilateral co-operation and assistance projects, meeting the real needs of south-east Europe’s local and regional authorities in such areas as local government administration and financial management;

to strengthen cross-border co-operation between local and regional authorities in south-east Europe.

Participants

The Forum attracted nearly 300 participants from twenty European countries. After the opening by Mr Risto PENOV, Mayor of Skopje, it was addressed by Mr Boris TRAJKOVSKI, President of “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. Other speakers included:

Mr Xhemali SAITI, Macedonian Minister for Local Government;
Mr Llibert CUATRECASAS, President of the CLRAE;
Mr Lachezar TOSHEV, Chair of the Bulgarian delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly;
Mr Dyonyssios KYVETOS, representing the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe;
Mr Dimitrios AVRAMOPOULOS, Mayor of Athens;
Mr Edi RAMA, Mayor of Tirana (see appended programme).

The following also attended the Forum and most of them made statements:

representatives of governments and other national authorities: apart from the host country’s Minister for Local Government, the German and Italian ambassadors in Skopje, the Swiss development and co-operation agency, a representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a representative of the Caisse des Dépôts et des Consignations (the French official loan fund), the Polish representative to the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe (Working Table I) and a USAID representative;

representatives of local and regional authority associations in the countries of south-east Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia/Montenegro)⁵;

representatives of local and regional authority associations or foundations in the following countries: France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Spain, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom;

seven members of the CLRAE, including Mr Cuatrecasas, President of the Congress, and Mr Koivisto, President of the Chamber of Regions;

representatives of the European Commission (at the opening session), the European Union’s Committee of the Regions, the OSCE, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD);

representatives of non-governmental organisations: Mr Haegi, President of the Foundation for the Economy and Sustainable Development of the Regions of Europe (FEDRE), the Director of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in Washington, the President of the European Network of Training Organisations for Local and Regional Authorities (ENTO), Eurocities, Cités Unies France, the Bulgarian association “Balkan Assist”, the EastWest Institute and the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (Soros Foundation);

Mr Martini, President of the Association of Local Democracy Agencies, and seven LDA delegates.

Proceedings⁶

The President of “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Mr Boris Trajkovski, and the President of the CLRAE, Mr Cuatrecasas, said that the development of inter-regional and cross-border co-operation and the establishment of direct partnerships between towns and regions, on the basis of the Council of Europe’s Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation, made an important contribution to improving relations between neighbours, reducing tensions and promoting tolerance of, and respect for, ethnic and cultural diversity.

The participants appealed to all the towns and regions which were considering partnerships with counterparts in south-east Europe to provide logistical and financial support. Partnerships played a vital part in meeting local and regional requirements, helped to strengthen local democracy in general, contributed to the stability and economic development of south-east Europe, and helped to bring it into the European family of nations.

The representatives of associations of local and regional authorities in south-east Europe (most of them elected in the autumn 2000 local elections) indicated the main needs which partnerships could meet. The national co-ordinators of local authority schemes (for the countries of south-east Europe) outlined the initiatives and projects devised in the main donor countries.

In his address, the CLRAE President thanked the Belgian authorities for the voluntary contribution they had given the Council of Europe for implementation of local democracy projects under the Stability Pact. This had been crucial to the holding of the Forum.

The President of the Association of Local Democracy Agencies (LDAs) and a field delegate described the agencies’ work and also prospects for development in new countries - particularly the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), with the help of voluntary contributions from Switzerland and Ireland under the Stability Pact.

The final round table was chaired by Mr Claude Haegi, President of the FEDRE and a former Congress President.

Conclusions and follow-up

The main conclusions are set out in the Final Declaration. This was adopted unanimously at the closing session, which was chaired by Mr Risto Penov, Mayor of Skopje and attended by Mr Xhemali Saiti, Macedonian Minister for Local Government.

1. The Skopje Declaration called on the Council of Europe to promote a multilateral agreement between the countries concerned in order to facilitate interregional and transfrontier co-operation in the Balkans (paragraph 3.8). This agreement should be based on the principles of the Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation and its two protocols. This proposal - already made at the European Conference of Border Regions (Timisoara, October 1999) - was reinforced and amplified at the Skopje Forum. Its ambitious aim was to encourage the countries of south-east Europe to put their recent terrible troubles behind them and conclude bilateral or trilateral agreements to foster co-operation between local and regional authorities, on the pattern of the existing agreements between France, Germany and Switzerland, or other similar agreements, such as those between the Baltic states.

The Congress should organise a conference to launch this project, with the various partners involved (e.g. government authorities, local authority associations, experts and civil society representatives).

2. The Forum issued an urgent appeal to European cities and regions to establish technical partnerships and twinning schemes with their counterparts in south-east Europe, for the purpose of meeting their pressing economic and social aid requirements. It asked the CLRAE to act as a focal point for the various existing initiatives.

In this area, the Congress is pursuing its activities under the Stability Pact by promoting partnerships, backing initiatives taken for this purpose by European countries whenever it can and, of course, playing an active part in the ongoing discussions on development of the Szeged Process.

At this stage, it does not have the financial or human resources needed to manage or supervise all the partnerships or twinning schemes established with towns and regions in south-east Europe, but it can act as a facilitator or contact point. The proposed setting-up of a website for this purpose, shared by the CLRAE, the FEDRE and local and regional authority associations in south-east Europe, should be encouraged.

The next Forum, which might be held in Turkey in late 2001, on the basis of the invitation issued in Skopje, might also provide an opportunity for more detailed review of existing and projected partnerships in south-east Europe.

3. The Forum also called for the setting-up of a network, geared to the eventual establishment of a union of south-east European local and regional authority associations.

It may be noted here that a number of Stability Pact initiatives are planned in 2001, with a view to developing existing associations and setting up new ones when necessary.

The Congress is, or will be, involved in the Council of Europe seminars (organised by DG I’s Directorate of Co-operation for Local and Regional Democracy) planned for Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro and Croatia.

Since the Skopje Forum, the President of the Federation of Romanian Municipalities has informed the Congress that he is prepared to play a leading role in this area and work for the establishment of a Union of Balkan Towns and Regions. As well as offering to host a meeting of Balkan towns and regions in Romania, he announced that Romania’s four local authority associations had merged to form the Romanian Council of Local Authority Representatives.

Following endorsement of this proposal by its Bureau on 15 December 2000, the Congress might decide to organise a conference to lay the foundations of this network of associations, which would later develop into a union of south-east European local authority associations.

4. The Final Declaration also insisted on the need to encourage exchanges of know-how and technical skills between local government leaders in different parts of Europe, to train elected representatives and staff and to promote the role of women in economic and political affairs at regional level.

With regard to training, the Congress is in permanent contact with the ENTO network, and is encouraging it to provide expert help in exploring training possibilities in south-east Europe. On a more practical level, it might ask ENTO to prepare a training programme for elected representatives and municipal/regional staff in some south-east European countries, taking account of the specific training needs expressed by local and regional authority associations, and also of training programmes already set up by other international or national organisations. In this connection, the Skopje Declaration welcomed Poland’s offer to provide training for 400 local authority officials from south-east Europe.

5. The Skopje Declaration also asked the Congress to organise an information seminar in 2001 on grants available for the development of trans-European and interregional co-operation between local and regional authorities, under the EU’s assistance programmes (e.g. INTERREG) and programmes for transition countries (PHARE and TACIS).

Contacts established and meetings organised at the Forum

The Forum provided an excellent opportunity for multilateral contact-making. These contacts and the co-operation projects which grew out of them are one of its most significant practical results. The main partnership proposals of which the Congress Secretariat is aware are:

co-operation between the mayors of Skopje, Tirana and Athens;

proposed partnerships between the cities of Skopje, Dresden and Nuremberg;

proposed co-operation between the canton of Tuzla (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and a number of Swiss cantons;

draft agreement between Vojvodina and the canton of Tuzla, with the support of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, on reopening of the Tuzla mines and re-establishment of cereal production in Vojvodina;

proposed co-operation between towns in Montenegro and Germany;

proposed co-operation between the Association of Local Democracy Agencies, “Cause Commune Suisse” (Switzerland), “Balkan Assist” (Bulgaria) and the Local Government International Bureau (United Kingdom).

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To obtain a clearer view of the Forum‘s results, a short questionnaire was sent to the speakers. From the fifteen or so replies received so far, a number of points deserve mentioning:

1. On the political level, the support provided for local authorities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, before the new government took over, must be continued - and even stepped up - during the current transition period. The same obviously applies to Montenegro and Kosovo. The support programmes for towns and regions should also be extended to cover all towns in south-east Europe.

2. As far as partnerships are concerned, the various initiatives interlock in ways which make it hard to gain an overall view. In particular, partnerships concluded by towns and regions with their counterparts in Serbia or Kosovo are often supervised, or even co-ordinated, by foreign ministries. This is the case, for example, in Germany, the United Kingdom and France, because of the “sensitive” nature of these schemes and their potential impact on the country’s foreign policy. At all events, the replies received show that the Skopje Forum gave the participants a chance to make new contacts, which later produced practical results in the shape of partnerships or technical assistance. The Czech Ministry of the Interior has told us, for example, that it forged links with the Ministry of Local Government of “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” at the Forum, leading to a programme on reform of public administration (transferring know-how and pooling experience) under the Stability Pact. This project is now being implemented in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice in Skopje, which is responsible for public authority reform, and the Czech experts are preparing to visit the four countries concerned (“the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania). The Skopje Forum thus played an important part in paving the way for this project, which was launched and is being supported by the Stability Pact.

Most replies indicate that the forum helped potential partners to meet and raised the profile of the new associations or organisations involved in these exchanges.

These contacts have generated new projects, some of which are listed above. Others are still being discussed, and include:

the opening of a Local Democracy Agency in Albania, a proposal submitted at the start of 2001 by the Chief Executive of the Albanian National Association of Municipalities.

3. The Forum showed that local authorities in south-east Europe were keen to get involved in the European integration process, and to draw on the various EU programmes and the projects co-ordinated by other European organisations and international financial institutions for this purpose. The Congress, for its part, was asked to give all forms of interregional and transnational co-operation its political support.

4. Since the Forum, the Congress has received details of the partnerships concluded by German towns and cities in 2000, of existing and projected twinning schemes (especially with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and of the technical aid and other new requirements of towns in south-east Europe.

On 1 February 2001, the Congress Bureau was also informed by the Secretary General of the Standing Conference of Yugoslav Towns and Municipalities that an agreement to foster partnerships with French towns and cities had been signed. Following visits to Belgrade by French local authority representatives, a two-year work programme has been adopted. This stems from contacts made at the Skopje Forum and its main focus is on help with the setting-up of local authorities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In a similar vein, the United Kingdom’s Local Government International Bureau (LGIB) took advantage of the Skopje Forum to increase British local authority involvement in the LDA programme.

5. Information requests. Since the Skopje Forum, the Congress has also received a number of requests for practical guidance: How does one go about setting up partnerships and twinning schemes? How do local authority associations operate (status, structure, regulations, etc.) in other countries? It will answer all these enquiries.

6. Concerning the organisation of future forums, it has been suggested that, instead of plenary sessions only, there should also be a number of parallel specialised working sessions, at which specific topics could be examined in greater detail.

7. It has also been emphasised that municipal partnerships rely heavily on the crucial links provided by specialist NGOs (in particular the Red Cross), and also on foundations and trade unions (especially in Germany).

There are many other technical partnerships on which the Congress has very little information. At the Forum, for example, mention was made of fruitful exchanges between hospitals (involving donation of equipment, training and doctor exchanges) and universities (e.g. recent exchanges between the universities of Limoges, in France, and Skopje).

In spite of the efforts made at Skopje, it is therefore clear that the information we have on partnerships, which take many different forms, still needs to be completed.

8. Inter-town partnerships are seen as a tangible source of outside aid during transition periods, when the material and human situation of people in certain south-east European countries is highly uncertain. These partnerships are visible signs of solidarity, forging ties and personal links between municipalities and regions which are often far apart.

9. Lastly, it should be noted that the most active participants at the Skopje Forum were newly elected public representatives from south-east Europe. This augurs well for their political commitment to full participation in the process of building a united Europe.

Annexe I - CG/Forum Skopje (7) 4
FORUM OF CITIES AND REGIONS OF SOUTH-EAST EUROPE 7th Economic Forum Skopje, 16-18 November 2000 : FINAL DECLARATION adopted on 18 November 2000