Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-13-Speech-1-055"
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"en.20030113.5.1-055"2
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".
Mr President, it is on the initiative of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs that the European Parliament is, for the first time, addressing the issue of the role of regional and local authorities in European integration with a specific report and a motion for a resolution. The reasons for this initiative and its goals are not difficult to understand. Indeed, particularly over the last decade, a widespread trend towards decentralisation, regionalisation and increasing autonomy of local authorities has become apparent in the Member States of the Union, and it is right to recognise the importance of this trend when reflecting on and discussing the state of the European Union and its future. The regional and local authorities have taken on a more important role in transposing Community legislation within the individual States and in running Community programmes. They should therefore feel involved in the preparatory work on the Union’s policies and acts too.
To this end, the motion for a resolution which is now to be put to the vote in the plenary session of this House contains important proposals: the inclusion in the new constitutional framework of the principles of respect for regional and local identity and, therefore, of the application of subsidiarity, not just in relations between the Union and the Member States but where regional and local authorities are concerned too; committing the Commission, not least on the basis of its White Paper on Governance, to involving the representatives of regional and local authorities in the preparatory work on its proposals; calling upon the Member States to promote and enhance – each in accordance with its own constitutional system – the participation of regional and local authorities in the Union’s decision-making process.
With the resolution we have drawn up, which, if adopted by broad consensus, will be an important point of reference for the subsequent debate at the Brussels Convention in early February, the cause of recognising the role of the regional and local authorities in European integration will receive a considerable boost. I hope that due consideration will be given to certain concerns expressed in committee by myself and other colleagues and that a number of amendments correcting and clarifying the text adopted by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs will be adopted, so that misapplication and unilateral measures which would harm our cause are avoided.
In this regard, I would like to stress the criteria I adopted as rapporteur. Firstly, we need to consider all the autonomous territorial entities which operate within the Member States as a single unit. As we are all aware, they vary greatly in size and nature but they all, from the largest to the smallest, whatever their role or powers, represent certain shared values – the value of proximity, of the closest possible adherence to the views, opinions and needs of the citizens, the value of the most immediate and widespread democratic participation possible – and the European Constitution must recognise that they all have a key role to play in the achievement of the goal set for the Convention on the Future of Europe: the goal of bringing Europe considerably closer to the citizens, of making the Union more democratic as well as more effective. I have therefore not proposed in my draft report to subdivide regions or local authorities into different categories. Giving a specific category of autonomous territorial entity special status or exclusive rights within the Union would lead to difficult, counterproductive disputes, even as regards defining and establishing the boundaries of a particular category – the category of regions with legislative powers, for instance – and would conceal the value of recognising all the regional and local authorities together as one whole, as one overall entity.
Secondly, we need to ensure that we do not create a more cumbersome institutional system and procedures which we all agree actually need to be simplified, and in this ‘institutional system’ I include the Court of Justice and its procedures too. As a general rule, we need to take care not to reduce the effectiveness of a decision-making process which is already subject to a large number of constraints
by applying a set of checks and balances of varying degrees of rigidity.
In conclusion, I trust that the Members will reflect on the points I have made and that there will be broad consensus in tomorrow’s votes."@en1
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