80% of EU programmes are run by regional and local administrations whose action needs to be coordinated with that of the Union” “
The plenary session of the Convention on the future of Europe ends on 7 February. The “regional and local dimension in Europe” was discussed at the opening of the session. Urged by the regional associations and the Committee of the Regions, the debate tackled the problem of what role should be assigned to the local and regional authorities in the future constitutional treaty. The associations of the cities and of the regions adopted a joint platform of requests to present to the Convention. In particular they asked the European Union to respect “the organization of public powers at the national, local and regional level”, comprise in the notion of subsidiarity the powers of the regional and local authorities “according to national constitutional law”, provide forms of prior consultation of the local authorities by the EU, promote “active cooperation” between cities and regions, and permit the Committee of the Regions to start legal proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Community on matters relating to subsidiarity. The plenary session also discussed the report presented by George Katiforis on the social Europe. The next plenary session is scheduled for 27 and 28 February: the Convention will discuss the first of the articles of the future constitutional treaty drafted by the Presidium. On the role of the Regions and local authorities within the EU’s decision-making process, SirEurope consulted the opinion of French MEP Alain Lamassoure , who presented a report to the European Parliament on the clarification and delimitation of functions in the future Europe. In your view, what is the role and what are the functions that the Regions and the territorial communities ought to have in the new constitutional architecture of an enlarged Europe? “The territorial organization is the exclusive competence of each State: on this point there cannot be any ambiguity. But this does not prevent us from acknowledging that some 80% of all Community programmes are now managed by regional and local administrations (the data are those of the Commission) and that over a half of member states comprise Regions with legislative powers, whose action needs to be coordinated with that of the Union”. Do you think there is any substance to the criticisms made by some Regions “with constitutional powers” according to which the Napolitano Report represents a step backwards as far as the Europe of the Regions is concerned? “No, it’s a step forward, albeit still a limited one. The power of starting legal proceedings before the Court of Justice could represent an important step forward, on condition that it be not subjected to too many conditions” Is it possible to make any forecasts about what future of the Regions in Europe will emerge from the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of the year? “I think that the spirit of my proposal has a reasonable chance of being accepted. Each State would have to furnish Brussels with a list of the Regions that it considers beneficiaries of the right to be “partner of the Union”: for example, it would be the right of such Regions to be consulted on each EU legislative proposal that entails a responsibility shared with the Regions concerned. It would also be their right to present legal actions to the Court of Justice in the case of conflicts of competence between the Regions and the EU”.
