Council of Europe

- Reaching a level of resources for local and regional authorities which is commensurate with their responsibilities;

- Finding an optimum structure of income sources in order to allow local and regional authorities to offer their citizens services which are adapted to their requirements;

- Striking the right balance between a high degree of freedom for local and regional authorities in managing their finance and a high degree of accountability.

- To make use of, implement and promote, as appropriate, the existing Council of Europe acquis in the field of local and regional finance, in particular Recommendations Rec (2004) 1 on the financial and budgetary management at local and regional levels and Rec (2005) 1 on financial resources for local and regional authorities;

- To promote and assess the impact of the Council of Europe’s acquis in the field of local finance;

- To consider updating some of the previous reports in the field of local and regional finance and notably the report on “Local finance in Europe” examined by us the 11th session of the Conference (Lisbon, 1996).