28th Session (24-26 March 2015)

• Hemicycle
• Room 1

• The session in pictures
• Side events
• Participation of youth delegates in Congress activities

• Tuesday 24 March : morning | afternoon
• Wednesday 25 March : morning | afternoon
• Thursday 26 March : morning

• Debates of the session
• Mediabox - Interviews

Tuesday 24 March

• Communication by the President of the Congress
• Statement by a representative of the Blegian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers
• The budget and resources of the Congress for the next biennium (2016-2017): Clemens Lammerskitten
• The United Kingdom : prospects for devolution
• Thematic debate: local and regional authorities facing migration flows

Wednesday 25 March

Chamber of Regions

• Thematic debate:  the regional dimension of the process of decentralisation in Ukraine
   

  Vyacheslav NEHODA, Vice-Minister, Minister of regional development of Ukraine

  Gianni BUQUICCHIO, President, Venice Commission of the Council of Europe

  Oleksi HONCHARENKO, Member of the Parliament of Ukraine, Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government

  Sergiy CHERNOV, Chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Council, President of the Ukrainian Association of District and Regional Councils, (TBC)

  Nataliya ROMANOVA, Councillor of Chernigiv District Council, Vice-President of the Congress

• Thematic debate: Scotland after the 18 September 2014 referendum
   

  LORD WALLACE OF TANKERNESS, Advocate General for Scotland

  Christina MCKELVIE, Member of the Scottish Parliament, Convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s European and External Relations Committee

  Harry MCGUIGAN, Councillor of the North Lanarkshire Council, Spokesperson for the Community Well Being of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)

• Communication by the President of the Chamber

Chamber of Local Authorities

• Opening of the sitting
• Jewish cemeteries, the responsibility of local authorities

  Mendel SAMAMA, Rabbi of Strasbourg, France

  Abraham GINSBERG, Executive Director of the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE)

  Roland RIES, Mayor of Strasbourg, France

  Yossi BEILIN, former Justice Minister, Israel

• Urgent debate: cities and towns against terrorism

  Guilherme PINTO, President of the European Forum for Urban Security (EFUS)

  Mustapha ABDI, Mayor of Kobane, Syria

Plenary Sitting

• Presentation of the no hate speech campaign: Gabriella BATTAINI-DRAGONI, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe
• Guaranteeing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people’s rights: a responsibility for Europe’s towns and regions

  Florencio CHICOTE, Coordinator of the Berlin Action Plan against Homophobia and Transphobia within the Berlin Antidiscrimination Office, Germany

• Urgent debate: responses to radicalisation in Europe’s cities and regions: fighting terrorism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate speech

  Hugh STARKEY, Professor of Citizenship and Human Rights Education, University College of London, United Kingdom

  Philippe GAUDIN, Head of Training and Research at the European Institute of Religious Studies, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France

  Hans BONTE, Mayor of Vilvoorde, Belgium

  Moussa AL-HASSAN DIAW, expert on extremism and deradicalisation, University College of Education Linz (Austria), EUISA Network/RAN Europe and Network for deradicalisation and prevention in Austria and Germany

• Local and regional democracy in Greece

Thursday 26 March

• Local and regional democracy in Poland
• Stanisław HUSKOWSKI, State Secretary at the Ministry of Administration and Digitization, (Poland)
• Local and regional democracy in Norway
• Jardar JENSEN, State Secretary of Local Government and Modernisation, (Norway)
• Criteria for standing in local and regional elections