Over recent years, the Congress has noted with concern signs of a clear deterioration in the security of local and regional elected representatives, and in particular of mayors. Local and regional elected representatives across Europe are reporting an increase in various forms of violence, targeting them directly, and their relatives and collaborators.
The violence that they experience could be linked with the polarisation of European politics and society, amplified by recent crises including the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pressure and intimidation can take many shapes - verbal and physical personal attacks, hate speech, and defamation, as well as physical attacks on offices and residencies and online threats. Social media also allow users to confront politicians and to spread hateful content more directly and anonymously.
Local and regional politicians are more accessible to voters than their counterparts at the national level. This makes them particularly vulnerable to violence and intimidation, in office and in their personal lives. During electoral campaigns, threats are often used to discourage candidates from standing. While in office, many representatives are working under intense pressure, experiencing harmful mental and physical health issues and resigning before the end of their term of office. At the same time, political parties are struggling to recruit new candidates for local and regional mandates.
All this has a chilling effect on grassroots representative democracy. This is particularly true for women, youth and people belonging to minorities who are often the primary target of such attacks.
The Congress offers a set of recommendations - based on the repport by the co-rapporteurs Katrien Partyka, Belgium (R, PPE/CCE) and
Bryony Rudkin, United Kingdom (L, SOC/G/PD) - to Council of Europe member states to ensure that local and regional politicians can fulfil their mandates in a free and safe environment. It notably recommends better tackling violence in law, training local officials to handle violence, setting up alert and support systems, as well as promoting codes of conduct and diversity across the political sphere. The participation of women, people belonging to minorities, and other underrepresented groups in local and regional governance should be fostered through measures such as quotas and targeted outreach, the Congress recommends.
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