In his communication to the Committee of Ministers on 30 October 2026, Congress Secretary General Mathieu Mori presented the Congress action in five priority areas: support for Ukraine, rebuilding trust from the ground up as a contribution to the New Democratic Pact for Europe, territorial communities at the heart of environmental action for a sustainable future, making human rights a reality there where people live, as well as good governance and the rule of law.
He pointed out to the debate on financing Ukraine’s recovery during the Congress’ October session, with the participations of Ukrainian Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Vitalii Bezghin and Governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank Carlo Monticelli, as well as the Congress support of the Carpathian Integration Initiative for macro-regional cross-border co-operation among eights countries (including Ukraine) and support to the country’s frontline regions. Ukrainian mayors were also playing an increasingly important role in raising awareness of the Council of Europe’s Register of Damage for Ukraine and helping citizens submit their claims, he said, noting that more than 700 mayors took part in the Register’s events to promote its use.
The Congress contribution to the New Democratic Pact to date included several early-warning instruments against democratic backsliding at local and regional level, adopted during the October session, said Secretary General Mori, stressing that “democracy cannot be renewed without renewing citizens' trust – and this trust is built, or lost, where people experience democracy in their everyday lives”. Those tools aim to ensure that citizens feel their voices count – through strengthening electoral integrity, promoting deliberative democracy and developing a quality label for citizens' assemblies that meet Council of Europe standards of transparency, representativeness and genuine impact, as well as detecting threats to local democracy before it is too late, giving young people a meaningful place in democracy, and ensuring that artificial intelligence strengthens – rather than undermines – local democracy. In this regard, the risk-alert dashboard on local and regional democracy, the new European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life and the HUDERIA Academy for local authorities on the use of artificial intelligence were important instruments put forward by the Congress.
According to the Secretary General, the Congress pursued its action to ensure a sustainable future, by advocating for a Council of Europe legally binding instrument for environmental protection and an additional protocol on the environment to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, and recommending measures against coastal erosion, among others. The Congress also continued to make sure that citizens’ human rights – and in particular the freedoms of speech and assembly – are respected in local communities, with its latest recommendations on guaranteeing the freedoms to speak and to meet for the LGBTI community.
Through its recommendation on strengthening the status and rights of election observers, and through its checklist against corruption at local and regional level, the Congress also continued to foster the rule of law in European territorial communities, concluded Secretary General Mori
