Congress Vice-President Michalis ANGELOPOULOS (Greece, EPP/CCE) opened the seminar which brought together Congress members and experts, in Minsk, on 11 September 2018, to discuss the situation of local self-government in Belarus. He presented, in particular, the European Charter of Local Self-Government and the monitoring activities carried out by the Congress.
“The main purpose of the Charter is to provide member States with a common basis of shared values in the field of local democracy, which every national government and local authority can refer to in building or reforming their institutions,” he explained, underlining the wide range of experience in this field in the 47 Council of Europe members States. “Europe is diverse, and the application of the Charter is correspondingly diverse,” he stated.
“Our mission at the Congress is not to teach or to instruct national authorities as to which model should apply. Our mission is to share experiences and to make “recommendations” to national authorities, based on our experience,” said the Congress Vice-President. “I am confident that Belarus will find its own way to establish better local governance, based on a relevant and accurate application of the principles of the Charter,” he concluded.
