The Centre of Expertise helps European countries deliver good governance at all levels of government and promotes European standards and best practice in the field. It continuously invests in research and expertise, creates partnerships with national and international actors, develops practical tools and enlarges its offer of programmes by adapting them to the specific needs of the countries.

The Centre provides capacity-building programmes and policy and legal advice to local, regional and national authorities, in order to support on-going processes of reform of public administration and local government. It is directly connected to the European Committee on Democracy and Governance (CDDG) and therefore has a ready access to high-level government officials from the 46 member States and a reservoir of knowledge.

The Centre builds on a unique set of European standards and the 12 Principles of Good Democratic Governance. It has a repertoire of 25 capacity-building toolkits representing the practical crystallisation of the Council of Europe standards and best European practice, enabling the evaluation and reinforcement of the capacities of local authorities.