Ongoing Political Work (2006-2010)

GROUP OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS IN THE COMMITTTEE OF THE REGIONS

ONGOING POLITICAL WORK (2006-2010)

Dear Comrades, Dear Friends,

The 4th term of office of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) began in February 2006 at a time when Europe needs, more than ever, strong and legitimate relays such as local and regional politicians, to be accepted and understood by its citizens. I believe that the Committee of the Regions, this institution whose aim has always been to marry the local/regional dimension with the European one, can and must make a significant contribution to restoring confidence in the European project.

This is why rooting the Committee of the Regions firmly in the current debate on the future of Europe is one of the PES Group's priorities for the coming four years of the term of office. Socialist representatives at the CoR are fighting for a Europe that listens to its Regions and Cities. This does not mean less Europe but better Europe - a Europe that respects the principle of subsidiarity, involves its regions, and speaks to its citizens. I could not agree more that there is a huge communication gap between Europe and its citizens, at grassroots level. We therefore need decentralised communication strategies to tap into the democratic potential provided by CoR members and their European mandate.

Yet, Europe is not just faced with a communication problem but also a policy one, with citizens increasingly turning to Europe to seek protection from the effects of globalisation. A key priority of the PES Group is to help strengthen the social dimension of European integration via a more decentralised implementation of the Lisbon strategy and the promotion of services of general interest. What we really need to communicate to the citizens is that the European project is a political one and not a project just about market liberalisation.

I hope that this presentation of our political priorities proves to be a useful tool, enabling you to understand how the Committee of the Regions and the PES Group in the CoR interact in pursuit of their common goal: to reinforce territorial cohesion, cooperation and solidarity.

Mercedes BRESSO President of the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions

The Role of the Committee of the Regions Set up by the Treaty of Maastricht as an assembly representing local and regional authorities within the European Union, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) is the youngest of the European Union’s institutions. Its main aim is to associate the regions, cities and municipalities with the formulation of Community policies, three quarters of which are implemented and funded to a large extent at local or regional level. The birth of the CoR was also a response to the wish to implicate the level of elected government that is closest to the citizens with the European integration project.

Membership in the Committee of the Regions At present the Committee of the Regions has 317 members, and an equal number of alternate members, who include presidents of regional governments, presidents and members of regional councils, mayors, county council chairmen and members of municipal councils.

The Treaty of Nice sets the maximum number of members of the CoR at 317 for the EU of 25 member states, rising to a maximum of 344 upon the accession of 2 the new member states – Romania and Bulgaria.

The Commission and the Council are obliged under the Treaties to consult the Committee of the Regions on any proposal made in certain fields related to local and/or regional powers. The Maastricht Treaty defined 5 obligatory consultation fields – education and youth, culture, public health, economic and social cohesion and trans-European infrastructure networks. The Treaty of Amsterdam added to this list 5 more fields – employment policy, social policy, environment, vocational training and transport.

The Commission, the Council and the Parliament can also consult the CoR in other fields related to the powers of territorial authorities.

CoR members are proposed by the Member States to the Council of Ministers, which then appoints them officially for a renewable four-year term. In accordance with Article 263 of the Treaty, each country selects its members according to its own criteria, but CoR members must either hold elective office for a territorial entity or be politically accountable to an elected assembly.

Thanks to their dual mandate at local/regional and European levels, CoR members play a key role in explaining European integration at grass roots level.

Membership in the CoR and in the PES Group (situation of October 2006):

Country CoR Members PES Members Austria 12 5 Belgium 12 6 Cyprus 6 Czech Republic 12 1 Denmark 9 4 Estonia 7 Finland 9 4 France 24 13 Germany 24 7 Greece 12 7 Hungary 12 4 Ireland 9 1 Italy 24 11 Latvia 7 Lithuania 9 4 Luxembourg 6 1 Malta 5 2 Netherlands 12 1 Poland 21 8 Portugal 12 5 Slovakia 9 4 Slovenia 7 3 Spain 21 9 Sweden 12 6 United Kingdom 24 9 TOTAL 317 115

Organisation of the work of the Committee of the Regions

+ The Presidency: Michel DELEBARRE (PES/FR), Mayor of Dunkirk, Member of the French National Assembly and former Minister of State in charge of several portfolios, is the current President of the CoR for the first half of the 2006-2010 term of office. Michel Delebarre is a former President of the PES Group (Feb 2002 – Feb 2006) . The current First Vice-President is Luc Van Den Brande (EPP/BE), Senator of the Flemish Parliament.

Former CoR Presidents: 1994-1996 : Jacques Blanc (EPP/FR) 1996-1998 : Pasqual Maragall i Mira (PES/ES) 1998-2000 : Manfred Dammeyer (PES/DE) 2000-2002 : Jos Chabert (EPP/BE) 2002-2004: Albert Bore (PES/UK) 2004-2006: Peter Straub (EPP/DE)

+ The CoR Bureau The CoR Bureau is the institution’s political driving force. Its role is to establish the political priorities, towards which all CoR activities must be geared, and to monitor their implementation on an annual basis. The Bureau generally coordinates the work of the plenary sessions and the commissions.

The CoR Bureau meets 7 times a year : 5 times on the eve of each plenary session and twice outside Brussels, in the Member State holding the Presidency of the Council (Extraordinary CoR Bureau Meetings). The CoR Bureau has a two-year term of office.

+ The Conference of Presidents of the Political Groups The Conference of Presidents of Political Groups is made up of the CoR President, the First Vice-President and the Presidents of the four Political Groups. It ensures the continuity of the relations with the Conference of Presidents in the European Parliament and plays a leading role in the political preparation of the work of the CoR Bureau. The Conference of Presidents is not intended to replace the Bureau, entirely or in part. Experience has simply shown that it has become a « facilitator » of decision-making for the Bureau, its President and its First Vice-President. It should be noted that the Conference of Presidents in the European Parliament is the authority responsible for relations with the other institutions and bodies of the EU, including the CoR. The CoR and EP Conferences of Presidents have two joint meetings per 5-year EP term of office. The Conference of Presidents meets before each meeting of the CoR Bureau.

+ The CoR Plenary Session Five times a year, CoR members meet in plenary session in Brussels. At these sessions, members adopt opinions, resolutions or declarations, while having the opportunity to debate major political issues, with the participation of political personalities invited as guests on these occasions (European Commissioners, representatives of the Council Presidency etc.).

At least one of the 5 plenary sessions per year is held in parallel with the mini-plenary session of the European Parliament, thus demonstrating the importance which the European Parliament attaches to the development of inter-institutional cooperation. Joint political activities are organised around these annual CoR/EP meetings.

+ The CoR commissions The work of the CoR is structured around 6 specialised commissions: COTER Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy ECOS Commission for Economic and Social Policy DEVE Commission for Sustainable Development EDUC Commission for Culture, Education and Research CONST Commission for Constitutional Affairs, European Governance and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice RELEX Commission for External Relations and Decentralised Cooperation

The 6 commissions prepare the draft opinions to be submitted for adoption to all the members meeting in plenary session. Once adopted, opinions are officially transmitted to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council.

The 4 political groups also appoint, for the 4-year term of office, one political coordinator per political group for each of the 6 commissions.

The PES coordinators ensure the cohesion and coordination amongst PES members sitting in the same commission, negotiate with their counterparts from the other political groups for example on the appointment of PES members as rapporteurs for the CoR on a given opinion and ensure that the PES Group’s position on any given question obtains the maximum possible number of favourable votes in the commission.

PES Coordinators: COTER: ECOS : Bernard SOULAGE (FR) Breda PEČAN (SI) 1st Vice-Chairman of the Regional Mayor of the municipality of Council of Rhone- Alpes Izola

DEVE : EDUC : Michael COHEN (MT) Gerd HARMS (DE) Mayor of Kalkara State Secretary of the Region of Brandenburg for Federal and European Affairs

CONST : RELEX : Anna TERRON I CUSI (ES) Andreas SCHIEDER (AT) Delegate of the Government of the Member of the city Council of Generalitat of Catalonia in Brussels Vienna

A PES coordination meeting is held before each commission meeting, from 10 a.m. till 10.30 a.m. Interpretation is guarantied in the 3 working languages of the Group: English, French and German. In addition, a meeting between the President and the Political coordinators of each CoR commission is systematically held half an hour before the beginning of the commission meeting, from 10.30 a.m. till 11.00 a.m.

ORGANISATION OF THE WORK OF THE PES GROUP

+ The President From the very outset of the Committee of the Regions, it was decided to set up political groups. They fulfil an important function in raising the political profile of the institution and act as a communication channel between the CoR, the other EU institutions and the outside world. The involvement of the PES Group in European Socialist bodies has grown in importance thanks to the dedication of the former Presidents of the Group, namelyLaurette ONKELINX(BE), Manfred DAMMEYER (DE), Albert BORE (UK) and Michel DELEBARRE (FR), who have gradually enabled it to establish itself in the European Socialist family.

Mercedes Bresso, President of the Piedmont Region (Italy), was elected President of the PES Group at the start of the 4th CoR term of office (February 2006). From 1985 to 1995, she was Member of the Regional Council of Piedmont and from 1995 to 2004, President of the Province of Turin. She joined the Committee of the Regions in 1998 and remained a very active Member of the CoR and the CoR Bureau until 2004. In 2004, she left the CoR and was elected Member of the European Parliament. Upon her election as President of the Piedmont Region in April 2005, Mercedes Bresso resigned from her parliamentary function to return to the CoR, an institution she has always supported vehemently..

+ The PES Group Executive The Executive of the PES Group is made up of the President, the First Vice-President and a number of Vice-Presidents, set at 6 at the beginning of the current term of office. The President coordinates all the activities of the Group and chairs the meetings. She also represents the Group at external events. The Executive has a renewable two-year tem of office.

The PES Group executive: President: First Vice-President: Mercedes BRESSO (IT) Karl-Heinz KLÄR (DE) President of the Piedmont Region Secretary of State for European and Federal Affairs in Rheinland- Palatinate

Vice-Presidents:

Vicente ALVAREZ ARECES (ES) Michal CZARSKI (PL) Marshal of President of the Autonomous Silezia region Community of Asturias

Fofi GENNIMATA (GR) Irene OLDFATHER (UK) Chair of the Prefecture of Athens- Member of the Scottish Parliament Piraeus

Catharina TARRAS-WAHLBERG (SE) Vice- Mayor of the City of Stockholm

+ The PES Bureau The PES Bureau is made up of the Group President, the First Vice-President, the other Vice- Presidents, the PES coordinators and at least one representative from each Member State. PES members belonging to the CoR Bureau, as well as PES chairs of commissions and of CoR working groups are automatically members of the PES Bureau ("ex-officio" members)..

The PES Bureau prepares the meetings of the CoR Bureau and the PES Group. On a proposal by the President, the Bureau decides on all questions relating to working methods and the organisation of the work of the PES Group secretariat. The President coordinates all the activities of the Group and chairs the meetings. She also represents the Group at external events. The PES Bureau meets in the margin of each ordinary plenary session, before the CoR Bureau meeting.

+ The PES Group Any full or alternate member of the CoR who belongs to a party which is a member of the Party of European Socialists is a fully-fledged member of the PES Group.

A meeting of the PES Group is systematically held before each ordinary plenary session (5 sessions a year). The PES Group meeting generally takes place on a Wednesday morning, from 10h30 till 13h00, with the plenary starting in the afternoon of the same day. Depending on the key subjects on the agenda for the plenary, it has become customary for the President of the PES Group to invite a guest speaker, thus allowing PES members to have an informed exchange of views with an expert in the matter. The aim of the PES Group meetings is primarily to elaborate a common position on key political issues and thus to present, as far as possible, a united front in the plenary.

In addition to the meetings held before the plenary sessions, the PES Group can hold 2 extraordinary meetings per year, one in Brussels and the other in the city/region of a member of the Group, at the invitation of this member. Extraordinary meetings are an opportunity for PES members to discuss in greater depth subjects which are of interest to socialists and social democrats.

A seminar can also be organised each year.

+ The PES Group Secretariat Set up in October 1996, the PES Group Secretariat has had a catalytic effect on the functioning and cohesion of the Group. It is the PES Group Secretariat that ensures communication and organises contacts between Group members. The Group Secretariat has also facilitated contacts between PES rapporteurs in the CoR and PES rapporteurs in the EP, thus greatly enhancing the flow of information between the two Groups.

Contacts: Address: Committee of the Regions Rue Belliard 101 JDE 7039 1040 Brussels Tel: +32-2-282 22 23 Fax: +32-2-282 20 69 E-mail: [email protected]

THE PES GROUP AND THE SOCIALIST FAMILY Coordination and cooperation with the socialist family have improved in more than one ways: contacts with the PES, its Parliamentary Group and the national parties have also grown in importance.

+ The Party of European Socialists Our Group is in closer contact than before with the Party of European Socialists, which includes the socialist, social-democratic and labour parties of the European Union. As of now, our Group takes full part in the activities of the PES: the Group President is a fully-fledged member of the PES Presidency following the revision of the statutes at the Berlin Congress (2001) and sits with full rights at the PES Leaders’ Conference following the decision taken at the Vienna PES Council (June 2005). The PES Group also has the opportunity to take part in PES Congresses, Council meetings, round table discussions and working groups on specific themes (such as the Lisbon strategy and energy).

In addition, such cooperation is pursued at administrative level through the participation of a representative of our Secretariat in meetings of the PES Coordination Team, held by the PES Secretary-General.

+ The PES Parliamentary Group Contacts with the PES Parliamentary Group have been pursued at official and informal levels: we have intensified the coordination of our work, mainly with regard to policies having a territorial dimension (such as cohesion policy, services of general interest, the Lisbon strategy, rural development). Similarly, the two groups hold joint meetings to encourage a joint political line on institutional questions as on 8th November 2006 when the PES members of the respective committees on regional policy met together with European Commissioners HÜBNER and SPIDLA to discuss on the leverage effect of the structural funds. As regards work in the commissions, contacts are encouraged between the respective coordinators and rapporteurs/nominal rapporteurs working on the same subject.

+ The PES Member Parties The PES Group has strengthened links with the national parties thanks to the participation of our members in certain events (annual Congresses, electoral campaigns, conferences, seminars) in the Member States; this cooperation framework has been made possible above all thanks to the devotion of some of our members within their national parties and to the national delegations of the PES Parliamentary Group. On 29 November 2006, an information seminar has been organised for the Press Officer of the PES member parties, to have a joint discussion on how to improve their respective communication policies.

+ The PES Group political priorities for 2006 - 2010 Even without the prospect of a rapid entry into force of the constitutional treaty, which would strengthen the institutional prerogatives of the CoR, the PES Group believes that the Committee of the Regions must focus on building upon the functions already attributed to it by the treaties in force.

More particularly, socialist representatives at the CoR are committed to: anchoring the CoR in the ongoing debate on the future of European integration;

pushing for more account to be taken of local/regional issues in the pre-legislative phase;

highlighting the intrinsic link between competitiveness and cohesion within the framework of the ongoing debate on the financial outlook;

fighting for a more decentralised implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and a reinforcement of the European model of society, particularly by promoting services of general interest;

defending an integrated approach to sustainable development;

acting as relays for increased collaboration with local authorities in the EU's partner countries under the "new Neighbourhood policy", and

pushing for greater consideration of the value added by local authorities in cross-sector issues of external policy, such as migration or decentralised cooperation.

Our first political priority is to anchor the CoR in the ongoing debate on the future of the European Union. In the opinion of President Mercedes BRESSO adopted by the COR plenary session in June 2006, we underline the need to move beyond the period of reflection: European institutions and elected representatives must engage seriously in a structured debate with citizens and their associations by adopting the method advocated by the Convention on the Constitutional Treaty. The debate should begin by defining the real problems experienced by European citizens, such as welfare, employment, environmental protection and energy.

The CoR has committed itself to a decentralised and structured debate during the period of reflection, which should be an active and dynamic phase of dialogue responding to the public's main concerns. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the COR will be organising a plenary session in Rome, in March 2007, at the invitation of the President of the Region Lazio, to relaunch the call for a constitutional treaty amongst local and regional authorities.

In this context, we highlight the advances secured for local and regional government in the constitutional treaty. These are to be found primarily in parts I and II of the treaty and in the protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, and are basically the following:

the method which enabled the constitution to be drafted by means of a convention with CoR participation;

the reference to territorial cohesion among the objectives of the Union;

respect for local and regional self-government;

a better allocation of powers;

recognition of the importance of earlier consultation of territorial interests when drafting proposed legislation;

a new definition of the principle of subsidiarity and the involvement of the CoR - including a right to bring legal action before the Court of Justice in the event of any violation of the principle of subsidiarity;

granting the CoR the right to defend its own prerogatives before the ECJ;

the recognition of subsidiarity when managing services of general economic interest.

The improvement of the CoR's informal impact will be judged by our capacity to guarantee that the local and regional dimension is taken into account across the board when EU legislation is drafted and to highlight the COR's contribution to better governance of the EU's legislative activities.

This will be done by boosting CoR involvement upstream and downstream in EU decision- making and by the part played by the CoR in assessing the territorial impact of major EU policies. The EU's sectoral policies, and in particular competition, research and transport policy and the CAP have a major impact at the level of regions and local authorities which should be constantly monitored. To do this, the CoR must make better and more proactive use of the tools which it already has, starting with outlook reports and opinions, as well as impact studies.

At the same time, the PES Group is seeking to boost the COR impact by targeting those issues where its credibility and the added value of its contributions are greatest.

This particularly applies to issues linked to:

CONTINUING THE DEBATE ON THE FINANCIAL OUTLOOK

The EU budget is not a bank which absolutely has to earn interest. Contributions to the EU are an investment in the future of the internal market, which has become the backbone of all the Member States' economies, even if Europe is much more than just a market. European public investments must not and cannot be measured only in gross and net costs, quite simply because the profit from these investments cannot be measured using traditional accounting methods. Indeed, to go back to Jacques Delors' remark: what would be the cost of having no Europe?

Within the negotiations which have led on 4th April 2006 to the inter-institutional agreement on the financial perspective 2007-2013, the socialist representatives of the CoR have highlighted the intrinsic link between competitiveness and cohesion, which are both

pillars of the European model of society based on the social market economy and solidarity. We have particularly defended the pursuit of a European cohesion policy which constitutes a stimulant to growth and to the competitiveness of the Union, apart from the fact that it projects the image of the EU in the regions and local areas.

The territorial dimension is the very foundation of regional and cohesion policy. In order to prevent fragmentation, Community intervention should concentrate on areas and territories where it can have a leverage effect. In this context, a large debate has been activated since May 2006 on the outlook opinion of the PES rapporteur Manuel CHAVES GONZALEZ (President of the Region Andalusia) on the leverage effects of the structural funds in the European territories.

Additional efforts must be made to implement a real policy for rural areas to back up the CAP in order to get away from the tendency to see rural development as a continuation of agricultural activity and rather to adapt its content and open up all the activities which the countryside can support as a "living space".

The financing of Trans-European Networks remains a priority, particularly as regards trans- frontier projects promoting intermodality, the overcoming of natural obstacles and recourse to sustainable modes of transport.

2. IMPLEMENTING THE LISBON STRATEGY AND DEVELOPING THE EUROPEAN MODEL OF SOCIETY The CoR is seeking to strengthen the social dimension of European unification by getting involved in implementing the aims of the Lisbon Strategy. A platform involving more than 50 cities and regions has been launched to monitor this implementation at territorial level; a yearly conference is organised to present these results before the Spring European Council.

The CoR's socialist elected representatives express the conviction that the Lisbon Strategy aims to lay the foundations of improved economic growth and the creation of new jobs. The Lisbon Strategy cannot be reduced to the objective of competitiveness alone. Indeed, competitiveness presupposes the development of the European social model by:

developing a social Europe at a high level, investing in human capital and combating social exclusion, reinforcing regional cohesion, promoting high-quality public services and investing in the quality of infrastructure, promoting a knowledge-based economy by better policies for the information society, education and vocational training, particularly by means of the general availability of lifelong learning in schools, training centres, businesses, and public and private organisations. integrating older people more effectively into the labour market and the life of society as a whole, a more proactive and better coordinated policy at European level for integrating minorities and migrants.

Socialist local representatives do not want to dump the Lisbon Strategy in the lap of national governments and repeat the call for a more decentralised implementation of the Lisbon strategy1.

However, employment involves every field of EU activity: macroeconomic policy, taxation (particularly reduction of the tax burden on labour and of the VAT rate for labour-intensive services), the organisation and operation of the labour market (vocational training, working time, etc) and the encouragement of all local and regional initiatives. In this context, a clear priority has to be given to combating social and fiscal distortions resulting from different degrees of social and fiscal harmonisation in the Member States. Workers must be shown that economic and monetary union does not clash with social union but complements it.

As regards services of general interest, we call on the Commission to regain the initiative and send out a clear signal for the adoption of a general framework for services of general interest in order to prevent interference between services of general interest and commercial services. The issue of legal certainty of public service providers in the EU context therefore continues to press. For the time being, the case-by-case development of the concepts by the European Court of Justice will continue – and with it problems for public service providers, recipients and public authorities. The PES Group in the CoR has worked closely on this issue with the PES Group in the European Parliament and continues to fight for the setting of high European level standards (for example in the opinion by PES member Jean-Louis DESTANS on Social Services of General Interest or in the earlier CoR opinion on the White book on Services of general interest by Claudio MARTINI).

Another important element of preserving and promoting the European social model is the ongoing fight against all forms of discrimination and for equal opportunities. Not least in the context of 2007- the year of equal opportunities for all, the PES-group in the CoR will continue its efforts against discrimination, as recently with the opinion of Claudette ABELA BALDACCHINO on the European Commissions Roadmap for Gender Equality. Local and regional actors have a key role to play here both as providers of services which must be delivered without discrimination, and at the political level where the struggle for equality must involve as many citizens as possible.

1 in accordance with the Lisbon European Council conclusions, which state that " a fully decentralised approach (for implementing the strategy) will be applied in line with the principle of subsidiarity in which the Union, the Member States, the regional and local levels, as well as the social partners and civil society, will be actively involved, using variable forms of partnership" (point 38 of the conclusions).

3. AN ENVIRONMENT THAT TAKES ACCOUNT OF THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Issues such as food safety, maritime security, railway safety, urban traffic, waste management, air and water pollution, civil protection and many others have a direct impact on people's quality of life. Local authorities have responsibilities as regards the regulation and promotion of an integrated approach to sustainable development and the CoR is a reservoir of very different experiences as regards environmental protection, energy policy promoting the use of renewable energy (see opinion by PES Member Bernd VÖGERLE), the definition of a European maritime policy (see opinions by PES Members Uwe DÖRING and Michael COHEN), combating climate change which must have a major impact on the development of European legislation. We underline in this context the work done in 2006 by PES rapporteurs.

THE COR'S EXTERNAL RELATIONS STRATEGY

Local and regional authorities have a key role to play in involving the local and regional players represented by the CoR more strongly in integrating the new candidate countries. This role is all the more important as various forms of decentralisation are in progress in the majority of these countries. Furthermore, the COR should, especially through the machinery of the Joint Consultative Committees and Working Groups, continue to give a support to local and regional authorities of candidate countries as to the adaptation of the "acquis communautaire" and in the continued and open process of accession negotiations.

The CoR can contribute to the strengthening of democracy, co-operation and cohesion on the European continent through increased collaboration with local authorities in the EU's partner countries under the "new neighbourhood policy" and to a deepening of the Euro- Mediterranean partnership.

Several issues involving the EU's relations with the rest of the world have local and regional aspects on which the CoR should make a specific contribution: migration policy, development policy, promotion of democracy and of the rule of law and cultural cooperation. An obvious example is that of the decentralised cooperation carried out for some years by our local authorities as underlined in the CoR opinion by PES Member Juliette SOULABAILLE.

www.cor.europa.eu/pesweb

PES Group Secretariat - Committee of the Regions Rue Belliard, 101 - JDE 7039 B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 2 282 22 23 - Fax: +32 2 282 20 69 Email: [email protected]