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Congress Bureau meets in Strasbourg

Meeting in Strasbourg on 26 March 2018, with Gudrun MOSLER-TÖRNSTRÖM in the Chair, the Congress Bureau considered the draft agenda of the 34th session to be held on 27 and 28 March 2018 under the theme of “rights-based governance at local and regional level”.

In particular, the Bureau approved the composition of a working group on Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where no local elections have been held for 10 years.  A fact-finding visit is due to take place at the end of the first half of 2018.  The EU’s Committee of the Regions (CoR) will contribute to the group’s work.

A new partnership agreement with the CoR would be signed, on Tuesday 27 March, by Gudrun MOSLER-TÖRNSTRÖM and Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the CoR.  The two bodies – the Congress and the CoR – are planning, in particular, to step up their co-operation on thematic issues such as migration, promoting local and regional democracy, combating radicalisation, and youth participation.  The next high-level meeting between the Congress and the CoR will be held at the beginning of 2019 – the year which will mark the 25th anniversary of the two bodies.

Other items on the agenda included local and regional democracy in the Republic of Moldova and in Turkey, the local elections in the Netherlands, to which the Congress sent an observer team (21 March 2018), and European Local Democracy Week.

The Congress Secretary General, Andreas KIEFER, also set out the prospects for future activities in Ukraine, Morocco and Tunisia, where the Congress might send a team to observe the local elections (6 May 2018).  In addition, he presented the handbook on change management and the handbook on transparency, two tools drawn up on the basis of co-operation activities conducted in several countries and made available to local and regional elected representatives.

In addition, the Director of the Congress, Jean-Philippe BOZOULS, presented the budgetary situation of the Congress and future prospects, in the difficult context facing the Council of Europe as a whole.  A strategic steering group has been set up by the Bureau to consider the possibilities for far-reaching reform of the Congress so as to make its budget sustainable and safeguard its political role and means of action in the future.

Strasbourg, France 26 March 2018
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