Transcript CoR General Presentation - Europaregion Responsive

Why a Committee of the Regions ?
 To give local and regional government a say over the drafting of
EU legislation (70% of EU laws are implemented at
local/regional level).
 To bring Europe closer to its citizens and to encourage a culture
of subsidiarity.
 To provide a meeting place where regions and cities can share
best practice and take part in a dialogue with the European
institutions.
The Committee of the Regions
A political assembly of the European Union representing local and
regional authorities
• Created by the Maastricht Treaty (1993)
• 344 Members (Regional and local representatives)
• First Plenary held in March 1994
• Six Plenary Sessions per year
• Six thematic Commissions and one Commission on budget
& administration
• 27 national delegations
• Four Political Groups
Key dates
• 1993 Maastricht Treaty creates the CoR
• 1994 First Plenary Session held in Brussels
• 1995 The number of CoR members increases from 189 to 222 as the EU-12
expands to EU-15
• 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam strengthens the CoR by increasing its field of
mandatory consultation and allows referrals from the European
Parliament
• 2003 Treaty of Nice states CoR members must hold an electoral mandate
or be politically accountable
• 2004 The number of CoR members increases from 222 to 317 in the EU-25
• 2007 The number of CoR members increases from 317 to 344 members
in the EU-27
• 2009
Lisbon Treaty enhances the status and political role of the CoR
The CoR and the Lisbon Treaty
• The Court of Justice has jurisdiction in actions brought by the
Committee of the Regions for the purpose of protecting its
rights.
• Possibility for the CoR to bring actions on grounds of
infringement of the principle of subsidiarity by a legislative act.
• Broadening of its area of consultation.
• Members’ term of office prolonged from 4 to 5 years.
European Economic &
Social Committee
Council of the EU
CONSULTATION
DECISION
European Parliament
CODECISION
European Commission
PROPOSAL
CONSULTATION
Policy fields
Consultation of the Committee of the Regions is mandatory in the
following policy areas:
• Economic, social and territorial cohesion
• Employment
• Education and youth
• Social affairs
• Culture
• Environment
• Public health
• Vocational training
• Trans-European networks
• Energy
• Transport
• Climate change
• Sport
CoR members and their appointment
344 members (plus 344 alternates)
Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom………….…………..
Poland, Spain…...……………………………………………….....
Romania...……………………………………………………….......
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece,
Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden……………………..
Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Slovakia, Lithuania…..……….….
Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia……………………..……………….….
Cyprus, Luxembourg…….………………….……………….……
Malta………………………………………….…………...…….…....
•
•
•
•
24
21
15
12
9
7
6
5
Local and regional representatives proposed by Member States
Formally appointed by the Council of the EU
Five-year renewable term of office
Six Plenary Session per year and adoption of about 60 opinions
Organisation of the Committee of the Regions
The President
President’s
private office
The Bureau
Secretary-General
Secretary-General’s
private office
Internal Audit unit
Administration
Services for members
and Registry
Secretariats of the
Political Groups
Consultative work
Communication,
press, events
Horizontal policies
and networks
Budget, finance
Legal service
Coordination,
follow-up, etc.
Press, internal and
external communic.
Forward planning,
studies, etc.
Recruitment, career
Internal services
NAT+ENVE
commissions
Events, Forums,
OPEN DAYS
Networks,
monitoring platforms
Working conditions,
rights, training
Registry, members,
nat. delegations, etc.
ECOS+COTER
commissions
Administration,
budget, publications
ARLEM,
decentralised coop.
General
administration
EDUC+CIVEX
commissions
Joint services
Logistics
Joint services
Translation
The Bureau
• 60 members, whose number per Member State reflects a national
and political balance:
• The President and First Vice-President
• One Vice-President per Member State
• Four chairs of the political groups
• 27 other members.
• Organisation of CoR work:
• Meets eight times a year
• Prepares the agenda of plenary sessions
• Draws up the Committee’s policy programme
• Allocates opinions to commissions
• Decides on own-initiative opinions.
Why political groups
 To enable transnational thinking and acting
 To link up the political families in the different EU
institutions and in the member states
 To implement the CoR’s mandate as political and
democratically legitimated organ
The Political Groups
EA
ALDE
NON-ALIGNED
EPP
PES
EPP
PES
European People‘s Party
Party of European Socialists
ALDE
EA
Alliance of Liberals and
Democrats for Europe
European Alliance
Consultative work: CoR opinions on legislative
acts
• Planning and preparing CoR opinions (62 in 2011) on EU legislative acts each
year for the six CoR commissions
• Involving EU institutions in topical debates
• Organising input by experts and stakeholders (conferences, seminars)
• Following up and monitoring legislative acts and the impact of CoR opinions
The EU budget 2014-2020: The view of regions
and cities
End 2012/early 2013, the EU will adopt its new Multiannual Financial
Framework 2014-2020. In an opinion of December 2011, the Committee of the
Regions declared that the level of financing proposed should be seen as the
absolute minimum required to deliver the ambitions the Member States have
agreed for the EU in the Treaty and the Europe 2020 strategy. It supported the
introduction of a new own resources system including a tax on financial
transactions. The CoR has also notably reiterated its strong opposition to any
form of macroeconomic conditionality and proposed on the other hand
that the conclusion of a formal
partnership agreement
between each Member State
and their local and regional
authorities be a specific ex
ante conditionality to the
disbursement of EU structural
funds.
Communicating the “regional and local Europe”
• Communicating to press/TV and Europe’s 100 000 regional and local
government bodies through newsletters, the internet and audiovisual media
• Organising about 200 conferences each year (European Week of Regions
and Cities; CoR Summits; EuroPCom; co-organising and hosting about 120
conferences with EU institutions, regional offices, associations) with 20 000
stakeholders
• 600 group visits each year with a total of 16 000 participants
• Producing publications in all EU languages
European Week of Regions and Cities-OPEN DAYS
Since 10 years, the CoR organises together with the European
Commission the OPEN DAYS-European Week of Regions and
Cities. 200 regional and local authorities, 200 regions and cities,
100 seminars, 5,000 participants, and 600 speakers make the
OPEN DAYS the biggest annual event on regional and
urban development. In addition, about 250 local events
branded ‘Europe in my region/city‘ bring Brussels‘ debates
home to an audience of about 30,000 in more than 30
countries.
Horizontal policies, studies, networks
• Monitoring a number of cross-sector priorities and providing medium- and
long-term political options.
• Strategic planning of CoR activities.
• Producing 40 studies each year and cooperating with academic networks.
• Networks and Monitoring Platforms on Subsidiarity, Europe 2020, Covenant
of Mayors and the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC).
• Supporting the representatives of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local
Assembly (ARLEM), the Conference of Regional and Local Authorities for the
Eastern Partnership (CORLEAP), and decentralised development
cooperation.
The Europe 2020 strategy: Involving regions
and cities
The Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform of the CoR, composed of
over 150 regions and cities from all EU Member States, is a tool
for local and regional authorities to have a say in the policy
process and the implementation of the EU's strategy to promote
smart, green and inclusive growth in the current decade. Through
meetings of regional and local representatives and experts,
consultations and reports, the Platform ensures better
implementation of Europe 2020 goals; examines the relationship
with cohesion policy, monitors the involvement of strategy's
governance process and stimulates exchange.
Visit us at www.cor.europa.eu/europe2020
The CoR’s political priorities in 2012
Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020
Cohesion policy 2014-2020
Common Agricultural Policy and rural development post-2013
Europe 2020 strategy
Climate change and energy policy
Economic and financial crisis and the “fiscal compact treaty”