Congress President Gudrun Mosler-Törnström addressed the participants to the Conference “Public policies, democracy, rights and transparency in local governments”, on 7 June 2017, in Athens, Greece. Referring to the results of two monitoring visits made by the Congress in Greece in 2014, she underlined the situation of Greek regions which were explicitly excluded from the scope of application of the European Charter of Local Self-Government at the occasion of the ratification of the Charter in 1989. “Today, in 2017, the territorial structure of Greece has changed. The Kallikratis reform redefined the first and second level local authorities mentioned in the Constitution – at present the municipalities and the regions,” Congress President explained. “In its recommendation, the Congress called on the Greek authorities to extend the scope of the Charter to the second tier of local government, namely the regions, by amending the existing legislation,” she stated. “I trust that we will have a fruitful post-monitoring dialogue, which I hope will lead to the incorporation of the regional level into the scope of application of the Charter and thus to the strengthening of policies of the regions in Greece,” she concluded. This follow-up to the monitoring report consists of a political dialogue of national, regional and local authorities with the Congress, in order to develop and to agree on a timeline to implement the Congress recommendations for that country.
Speech by Gudrun Mosler-Törnström
Photo gallery : meeting with the Greek authorities