Resolution No. 2 on Frontier regions and regional planning
The ministers,
1. Having at their 1st Conference (Bonn, 1970) requested governments:
to co-ordinate their planning policies and measures in these regions with the participation of those directly concerned, in particular by creating regional committees to hold periodic meetings in order to co-ordinate the preparation and timing of regional plans (Final Resolution, paragraph 28);
2. Having at their 2nd Conference considered the main report, Co-operation in frontier regions, as well as the series of background papers prepared by the Committee of Senior Officials;
3. Noting with satisfaction that several commissions have been set up or are planned, but that experience has shown that their functions, working methods and composition should be clearly defined;
4. Recalling Consultative Assembly Recommendation 470 (1966) on a draft convention on European co-operation between local authorities;
5. Having noted the results of the European Symposium on Frontier Regions organised at Strasbourg in 1972 by the Council of Europe Consultative Assembly and European Conference of Local Authorities and having noted Consultative Assembly Recommendation 693 (1972) on the European Symposium on Frontier Regions;
6. Considering that the Council of Europe has been chiefly concerned with co-operation on either side of the internal frontiers of its member states, and that external frontiers could become a first point of contact enabling Europe to achieve an open-mindedness;
7. Considering that, as was stated in Recommendation 693 (1972), the assembling and dissemination of information on the various existing or planned methods of transfrontier co-operation would undoubtedly meet a need and that a systematic attempt to assemble and disseminate information would assist such co-operation both in the context of ways and means and by encouraging favourable attitudes on the part of the populations concerned;
Adopt the following recommendations:
I. Prior consultation
8. Consultation at the stage of procedures preparatory to the adoption of regional plans is a suitable way of solving the problems of imbalances in frontier regions and of harmonising physical and regional planning in frontier regions.
9. Participating states should, whether unilaterally or on the basis of international agreements, take measures to ensure that the competent planning authorities consult their counterparts in neighbouring countries during the preparatory phase in the drawing up of plans which, at various levels, concern frontier territories.
10. Such consultations should deal with development plans and structural blueprints for frontier regions with regard either to the overall development of regional planning or to specific matters such as the functional relationships between towns, communications networks, location of industries, residential and recreation areas, social and cultural amenities etc.
11. The said plans and blueprints should if practicable be in accordance with the joint methods and techniques recommended by the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning.
12. The ministers hope that such unilateral undertakings or international agreements, through their cumulative effect, will lead to permanent concertation at the various levels of regional planning, particularly through bi- or multilateral regional commissions.
II. Bilateral and multilateral regional commissions
13. Bilateral and multilateral commissions, set up if necessary after international agreement, should:
14. Make a comprehensive study of the whole network of functional relationships in frontier regions, work out a common approach, and suggest overall solutions to be presented in the form of transfrontier structural blueprints and joint plans;
15. Ensure the representation of the various decision-making bodies and include representatives of governments, regional and local authorities;
16. Be open to consultation with, or the participation of, representatives of the population concerned, of economic, social, cultural, ecological and other interests, and transfrontier associations.
III. Joint local action
17. One of the most tangible demonstrations of transfrontier co-operation is the joint implementation of planning and regional policy operations at regional, intermediate and local authority level;
18. Believing that in fact the systematic organisation of procedures affording recourse to private law in the case of services, supplies and other work for the provision of public, social and economic amenities, as well as the association of municipal and intermediate administrative authorities across frontiers for the execution of practical planning projects, would foster experiments which, while limited, in area, would be such as to encourage an active form of transfrontier co-operation;
19. Recommend that fresh steps be taken to define procedures and machinery to make such forms of co-operation possible in accordance with the spirit of Recommendation 470 (1966) of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe concerning a draft convention on European co-operation between local authorities while reducing legal or constitutional obstacles.
IV. External frontiers, whether land or sea
20. Interested governments should enter into contact with European countries not represented at the conference with a view to examining the problems of their common frontier regions, and to establishing bilateral or multilateral collaboration in questions of regional planning and the environment.
21. Recommend the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to create within the Council of Europe a new body or expand an existing one to take responsibility for the following tasks:
– to assemble and keep up to date all information on current activities and methods of transfrontier co-operation between the member states of the Council of Europe, especially in regional planning matters;
– to communicate the information assembled to regional organisations and the national, regional and municipal authorities concerned;
– to make this documentation available to the various bodies within or attached to the Council of Europe.
Instruct the Committee of Senior Officials:
22. To continue their work in the field of transfrontier co-operation;
23. To ensure the necessary link with the various bodies of the Council of Europe studying the problem of frontier regions, in particular the European Conference of Local Authorities, the Committee on Co-operation in Municipal and Regional Matters, the Consultative Assembly Committee on Regional Planning and Local Authorities, the European Ministerial Conference on the Environment, the European Committee for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources etc;
24. This essential co-ordination should serve the purpose of:
a. determining the goals;
b. defining the conditions necessary for the harmonisation of regional planning systems at different planning levels;
c. allocating and co-ordinating work among the various bodies within or attached to the Council of Europe.