Governing a multilevel Europe

Luc Martens, President VVSG – Mayor Roeselare

Brussels, 2 December 2014

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State of play

CEMR representing 57 national associations in 41 countries

welcomes

the European Code of Conduct on Partnership Principle: • Appeal to work in close cooperation with local and regional authorities as fully fledged partners • Extend this principle to other EU policies

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CEMR report

Application of the European Code of Conduct in the 18 Member States (MS), included in the report: 14 MS: fully or partially applied Degree of involvement differs: from information, stakeholder involvement to strong cooperation Differences in involvement between the Partnership Agreements and the Operational programmes Example of Belgium: 3 regions(subnational governments): very strong, but local level much less

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Elements for improvement

A “tri-partite”-partnership agreement as the most complete implementation of the Partnership Principle Local and regional governments should be involved in regular working groups with central governments A medium term calender of meetings/agenda An analysis by the Commission of the use of Technical Assistance Remark: No endorsement of the final version of the PA was done by local and regional governments before its submission to the Commission!

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Conclusions

• • • • • Involvement of associations of local and regional authorities has been irregular and not initiated by central government Better recognition of the added value of local and regional authorities ’ involvement is required In some MS local authorities take part in the Monitoring Committees: crucial!

Creation of a EU central-local partnership to monitor performance of the respect the partnership principles CEMR members will follow up!

Thank you