Preliminary draft European charter of regional self-government of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text adopted
by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly,
on 19 March 1997. See Doc.
7771, report of the Committee on the Environment, Regional
Planning and Local Authorities, rapporteur: Mr Mota Amaral.
- Thesaurus
1. After many years of considering
the problem of regionalisation within the Council of Europe, the Congress
of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE) adopted, at
its first session in June 1994, its Resolution No. 8, in which it
decided to draw up a European charter of regional self-government
in co-operation with the Parliamentary Assembly. To this end, the
CLRAE set up a working group with responsibility for preparing a
preliminary draft charter, in which the Assembly was invited to
participate. The Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning
and Local Authorities monitored the working group’s activities.
2. On 5 July 1996 the CLRAE adopted Resolution No. 37 on the
European charter of regional self-government, whereby it provisionally
approved a draft European charter of regional self-government. After wide-ranging
consultation, a final version of the draft will be resubmitted to
the congress at its fourth session (3-5 June 1997).
3. In a letter of 15 July 1996, the president of the CLRAE requested
the Assembly to give an opinion on the draft charter, which will
be taken into account in the final text to be drawn up by the CLRAE.
The Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities
was asked to prepare that opinion.
4. The Assembly believes that recognition of regional self-government
is consistent with implementation of the principles defended by
the Council of Europe and that the draft charter is a useful complement
to the European charter of local self-government. In a Europe under
construction it is also important to guarantee the principle of
subsidiarity, firstly by furthering the development of territorial
democracy, particularly at regional level, and secondly by promoting
regionalisation as an alternative to centralised policies which
often prove incapable of providing an effective solution to certain
local problems.
5. The Assembly congratulates the CLRAE on its praiseworthy initiative
of preparing this draft charter, which it fully supports, and is
gratified to have been involved in the travaux préparatoires from
the outset, enabling it to make contributions throughout the drafting
process.
6. The Assembly is convinced of the value and benefit of preparing
a legal instrument laying down the general principles of regional
self-government, with due regard to the different national traditions,
at a time when several member states have already established regional
authorities and others are embarking on a regionalisation process
and when there is no binding international instrument on the subject.
7. Now that local self-government has been more securely guaranteed
through the European Charter of Local Self-Government it is important
that the Council of Europe should go one step further and equip
itself with a European charter of regional self-government which
reflects another institutional reality of our continent. Such a
text will give the regions of Europe an international legal guarantee
of respect for their autonomy and may serve as a reference for regionalisation
processes under way or planned in certain member states.
8. The Assembly is generally satisfied with the current wording
of the draft submitted to it and welcomes in particular the decision
not to define the term “region”, since not only is such a task intrinsically
fraught with difficulties but it would also have been impossible
to take account of the vast institutional diversity of Europe’s regions.
As to the text itself, the Assembly will confine itself to a few
comments while awaiting the final version currently being prepared.
9. The Assembly is also in favour of the innovation whereby this
text allows states not yet in a position to comply with the charter’s
provisions to undertake to do so following a given timetable. This
possibility should prove very helpful to states which have not yet
set up regions but wish to embark on a regionalisation process.
10. The Assembly will continue to co-operate in the further work
on a final version of the draft charter and will give an opinion
on the final text when the time comes.
