Anders KNAPE (Sweden, EPP/CCE), Congress Rapporteur, presented the draft “Guidelines on the right of local authorities to be consulted” at the Governance Committee Meeting held in the Region of Covasna, Romania, on 30 May 2018.
“Consultation of local authorities by higher levels of government, on all matters that concern them, is a key principle of the European Charter of Local Self-Government that our national authorities have all signed and ratified,” he stressed. “The essence of the guidelines is to ensure that these principles — which benefit both democracy and governance — are respected and applied,” underlined Anders KNAPE. “Well-managed consultation helps to develop the democratic process at national, regional and local level and contributes to better policies and decision-making”.
The implementation of these principles requires a good legal framework and a formal and adequate institutional setting “with local authorities having an institution to represent them and national authorities having institutions to coordinate their actions with local authorities”. These two essential conditions are at the heart of the draft guidelines which calls on to incorporate in the national laws the principles of the Charter and to set up national associations of local authorities.
“It is essential for local authorities to have their own national association whose role is to be recognised by the state. On the other side, national governments need to have institutions to talk and discuss with local authorities,” he explained, adding that this institutional dialogue should be enlarged to national parliaments or federated authorities.
The draft guidelines cover five different topics of the processes and procedures of the consultations: its participants, its object, and the different stages of involvement of local authorities, the forms of the consultation and information and publicity.
This text will be on the agenda of the 35th Session, in November 2018, for adoption by Congress members.
