Governance and citizenship

CEMR president, Annemarie Jorritsma, calls for a strengthened cooperation with the Committee of the Regions, notably in view of developing further the concept of multilevel governance.

This call is one of the key messages addressed to the President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso, at a meeting bringing together the presidents of the main associations of European local and regional authorities, on 20 January 2014, in Brussels.

CEMR has been promoting the ‘governing in partnership’ concept in the past years, a new model of multi-level governance based on a true partnership between all spheres of government. For its part, the Committee of the Regions has been working on the drawing up of a European Union Charter on multilevel governance. This Charter aims to establish the principles and methods for developing a common and shared understanding of European governance, based on respect for the principle of subsidiarity, which would support local and regional governance and the process of decentralisation.

CEMR is very interested in developing further the concept of multilevel governance in collaboration with the CoR, notably the proposed Charter. It however underlines that in order to achieve true ownership of such Charter within Europe's local and regional authorities, the Committee of the Regions must work hand in hand with all stakeholders in the drafting of such Charter. An exclusive approach "by CoR for CoR" is not viable in long term.

Other issues discussed at the meeting included the monitoring of the decentralisation process, the improvement of the Structured Dialogue with the European Commission and the setting up, by the Committee of the Regions, of a Network of Local and Regional Authorities for Integration.