“Social rights only become truly effective when they are implemented at the grassroots level. It is at that level that they cease to be merely formal commitments and become tangible guarantees. Subsidiarity is not just an institutional principle – it is a driver of both effectiveness and democratic legitimacy,” said Congress President Marc Cools at the Council of Europe Conference on Social Rights – the European Social Charter – in Chișinău on 19 March 2026.

He highlighted the role of local and regional authorities in organising access to social services, coordinating vocational training, spatial planning, transport, and economic development and inclusion policies. “They are on the front line when it comes to transforming legal commitments into concrete realities for our fellow citizens. So that none of them are left ‘by the wayside’, forced to live in extreme poverty and with no future prospects,” continued the Congress President, stressing that the effective implementation of the European Social Charter requires true multi-level governance. “The Congress is ready to contribute to this in order to guarantee a place-based approach to social rights,” he concluded.

At a side event co-organised by the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress on the day preceding the high-level session, 18 March, members of both political assemblies of the Council of Europe, jointly underlined the fundamental role of housing and environmental policies and the need for their effective delivery through multilevel governance. “Especially from the local perspective, social rights must be considered as “gateway rights”, facilitating access to other human and civil rights, and as a pre-condition for achieving social justice, trust in democratic systems and democratic stability”, concluded Gudrun Mosler-Törnström, Congress Standing Rapporteur on Human Rights, speaking at the opening and the closing of the side event.