Introduction
Strengthening local and regional democracy and securing respect for human rights are among the Council of Europe’s main aims because a properly functioning democracy provides one of the foundations for peace and stability in Europe.
Through their diversity, local and regional authorities also reflect the fact that the key principles of democracy and public participation in the management of living environments are flourishing.
The work of the European Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR) and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe demonstrates the importance of providing member states (regardless of their internal structure) with a "reference framework for regional democracy" to help them with their institutional development.
In June 1993, the Conference on "Regionalisation in Europe: Evolution and Perspectives", held in Geneva by the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe at the invitation of the Swiss Confederation and the Canton of Geneva, was the first manifestation of the Council of Europe’s interest in regions and regionalisation.
In Recommendation 1349(1997), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe expressed its full support for the Congress’s draft European Charter of Regional Self-Government of 1997. It recommended that the Committee of Ministers grasp the political opportunity provided by the draft Charter, involving the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe in the work, which would be entrusted to an intergovernmental committee of experts so as to finalise the text prior to its adoption and opening for signature.
At the 13th session of the Conference of European Ministers responsible for Local and Regional Government, held in Finland in 2002, the Ministers asked the Committee of Ministers to give terms of reference to the CDLR to prepare draft legal instruments of various types taking account of the guidelines devised during the Conference (subsequently referred to as the “Helsinki Principles"), modelled on the European Charter of Local Self-Government (ECLSG).
The Committee of Ministers Recommendation Rec(2004)12 to member states on the processes of reform of boundaries and/or structure of local and regional authorities sets out numerous pointers for setting up or changing such entities, particularly the need for consultation between authorities. Any reform process must be based on effective, transparent, responsible and representative institutional dialogue. Public access to information should be ensured and the results of the dialogue should be made public as soon as possible. If institutional dialogue is to be representative, local and regional authorities at all levels that have a legitimate interest in the issues being addressed must be invited to take part, regardless of their political make-up. Lastly, it is essential that all the relevant information is made available to all the participants in good time, by means of clearly established procedures, that the result, if not binding, is at least given due consideration in the final decision-making process and, of course, that institutional dialogue is of genuine import and is not deprived of its substance by parallel processes.
At the 14th session of the Conference of European Ministers responsible for Local and Regional Government, in Budapest, the Ministers instructed the CDLR to produce a detailed report on developments, innovations and issues to be discussed at the 15th conference in Valencia, while at the Valencia Conference it decided to “keep the issue of regional self-government and the further work carried out in this field under review at [its] next session [in Utrecht, in 2009], in order to give this important aspect of democratic societies the attention it deserves”.
At the same time, the Congress, continuing the work on which it had embarked when it drafted a European Charter of Regional Self-Government (1997), came up, in 2008, with a proposal for a draft European Charter of Regional Democracy, which is appended to its Recommendation 240 (2008).
In 2008, acting on the instructions given to it in Valencia in 2007, the CDLR proposed to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe that it would work with the Congress to draw up a “Reference framework for regional democracy”.
This document is a compilation and a synthesis of decisions by the Ministers and the Congress, serving as a reference point for any government wishing to begin a process of regionalisation or reform of its local and regional structures, without placing its sources in any order of priority.