“Over the last two years, the Congress Monitoring Committee has delivered a total of 29 reports - 21 monitoring reports on the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government and 8 election observation reports - to which we should add the 3 monitoring reports and 2 election observation reports which will be debated at the next Congress session in November 2018. This makes a total of 34 reports adopted within these 2 years, a record number,” stated Leen VERBEEK, Chair of the Monitoring Committee, at the opening of the Monitoring Committee meeting in Büyükçekmece, Turkey, on 28 June 2018.
“We have managed to increase the number of reports without undermining their quality and, at the same time, we developed our political dialogue with member States at all level of governance” he underlined. “The challenge ahead is to maintain a good rhythm of monitoring visits and this crucial political relationship we have with national, regional, and local authorities, despite the difficult financial situation. We will also continue to disseminate and multiply the work of the Monitoring Committee at all levels,” M. VERBEEK concluded stressing the “growing need in Europe for monitoring activities and fact finding missions”.
