Committee of the Regions launches initiative to strengthen EU’s accession process
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) reinforces its efforts to support prospective members of the European Union by gathering local political leaders for an annual political debate dedicated to the regional and local dimension of the EU’s accession process. The initiative underlines the CoR's long-term commitment to help EU's neighbouring countries meet the membership requirements and its conviction that EU local authorities can help in preparing relative countries in their bid for membership.
The first Enlargement Day, held on Monday 16 November, brought to Brussels regional and local politicians from seven countries that are seeking membership of the EU: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. The debates ranged from local and regional governments' development strategies to the powers and constraints on sub-national governments.
Markku Markkula , President of the CoR, said: “The political and social reforms currently underway in the enlargement countries cannot be introduced by force but only through respect for diversity and genuine decentralisation. He pointed out that the lion’s share - around 70% - of decisions made at the EU level require implementation at the local and regional level, making it essential - both politically and practically - for local and regional authorities to feel engaged and empowered by the accession process.
The conference complements the CoR’s existing structured cooperation programmes of region-to-region and city diplomacy through joint consultative commissions and ad hoc working group collaboration. Moreover, the CoR will soon adopt a specific Opinion, drafted by Anna Magyar (EPP/HU), after the release by the European Commission's annual report on enlargement. .
Simon Mordue , the European Commission’s director for enlargement policy and strategy, said that local and regional authorities have a key role in embedding a culture of transparency and good governance, and in implementing the acquis communitaire, the body of EU legislation that countries must adopt before joining the EU.
Among the local leaders from countries seeking EU membership were Aziz Kocaoğlu, Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, and Anto Domić, Mayor of the Brā ko District in Bosnia, both of whom have hosted CoR working groups this month. Mr Domić outlined the effects of the governance system created after Bosnia's civil war in the 1990s, which has left Brā ko with a distinctive status as a self-governing district. Mr Kocaoğlu, who described İzmir as having been the Turkish city most open to the Western world for 400 years, emphasised that "Turkey should be in the EU, not on the edge of the EU".
The chairman of the CoR's Turkey working group, Jean-Luc Vanraes (ALDE / Belgium), stated that the CoR would be better able to help prepare Turkey for accession by upgrading the current working group into a joint consultative commission. The CoR first asked the Turkish government to allow the creation of a commission in 2006.
In a further initiative, the CoR will on 7 December hold the first meeting of a recently created joint consultative commission with Serbia. The CoR's diplomacy with Serbian local leaders was previously through contacts in the working group for the Western Balkans.
Franz Schausberger (EPP / Austria), chairman of the working group for the Western Balkans, said that a recent study indicated that EU states with a high degree of political decentralisation are better able to absorb EU support. According to President Markkula: “Diversity is a real asset to the European Union, including diversity in forms of governance and in regional structures and systems. Each country has to design its own model of decentralisation in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, allowing decisions to be taken at the level closest to the citizens.
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Andrew Gardner
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