[autom.vertaling] EU-strategie voor uitbreiding en nabuurschapsbeleid te domineren debat op volgende CIVEX vergadering (en)
The Committee of the Regions' (CoR) contribution to the EU enlargement Strategy and the role of local and regional authorities in the European Neighbourhood Policy with EU's Eastern and Southern neighbours will be the focus of debate at the next CoR commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX). The meeting, to be held in Brussels on 10 February, will also give CIVEX members the opportunity to discuss the draft EU Charter on Multi-level Governance.
With reference to the European Commission's 2013 Enlargement package, CIVEX members will debate and vote the draft opinion of Arnoldas Abramavičius (LT/EPP), Mayor of Zarasai District Municipality, on the EU enlargement strategy towards the Western Balkans (Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo), Turkey and Iceland, from the point of view of local and regional authorities. As well as providing country-specific recommendations, the draft opinion calls on the European Commission to provide a comprehensive analysis of the state of local and regional self-government in candidate and potential candidate countries as a key tool for assessing progress toward decentralisation. It also underlines the positive experience of the Local Administration Facility programme (LAF) which, in cooperation with the European Commission, seeks to increase the understanding of candidate countries' local and regional governments about what the EU stands for. The draft opinion also suggests further extending the LAF programme to include all Eastern Partnership countries interested.
On behalf of the European Commission, Lawrence Meredith, acting Director for Enlargement Policy and Strategy will inform CIVEX members about the Commission's approach as regards the next steps for EU enlargement.
As a follow-up to the conclusions of the Vilnius Eastern Partnership (EaP) Summit which explicitly recognise the role of local democracy in EaP policies, the CIVEX meeting will hold a hearing on the future of the Partnership and the role of local and regional authorities in this framework. The debate will benefit from the views of Mercedes Bresso, CoR First Vice-President, and Mamuka Abuladze, Co-Chair of the Conference of the Regional and Local Authorities for the Eastern Partnership (CORLEAP), who both participated to the Summit last November. Ahead of the plenary session of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) to take place on 24 February in Tangier (Morocco), CIVEX members will also be presented with the latest developments regarding the Euro-Mediterranean dimension.
The meeting will also give CIVEX members the opportunity to exchange views on the draft EU Charter on Multi-level Governance to be presented by Luc Van den Brande (BE/EPP), Chairman of the Flemish-European Liaison Agency. The initiative comes as a follow-up to the CoR opinion on "Building a European culture of Multilevel Governance" adopted in 2012. The Charter is to be seen as a non-binding "political instrument" - launched by the CoR but open to all European institutions - that sets out the moral commitment of public authorities to implement the values, principles and processes of multilevel governance. The draft Charter is due to be presented for adoption to the CoR Bureau on 1 April and formally presented to the CoR plenary session the following day.
The future EU policy in Justice and Home Affairs after the expiry of the Stockholm Programme at the end of 2014 will also feature on the meeting's agenda with a first discussion to be held on the basis of a working document drafted by Lotta Håkansson-Harju (SE/PES), Member of Järfälla Municipal Council.
Please consult the CIVEX meeting agenda for further details.
Committee of the Regions' CIVEX commission
The CIVEX commission is responsible for issues including justice and home affairs, fundamental rights, smart regulation and the reduction of administrative burdens, citizenship and broader institutional issues such as governance and devolution. It also deals with the EU's external dimension, focusing on neighbourhood policy, enlargement and decentralised cooperation for development. It bring together 111 regional and local elected representatives from the 28 EU Member States and is chaired by António Costa (PT/PSE), Mayor of Lisbon.