Regions have role to play in taking EU to its citizens

Date: 16/01/1997

By Mark Turner

REGIONAL representatives from throughout Europe are this week drawing attention to the need for a greater understanding of EU activities among its citizens.

Aiming to dispel the widespread belief that decisions made in Brussels have little to do with everyday life, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) has been holding its first 'Information to the Citizens' forum.

But the meeting, which ends today (16 January), avoided the topic highest on many representatives' agendas a desire to force EU leaders to listen to what the regions have to say.

Supported by Information Policy Commissioner Marcelino Oreja, the forum has been examining the various strategies used by cities and regions to tell their inhabitants what is happening at a European level and how to take advantage of it.

Oreja, who is in charge of the European Commission's three big information campaigns on the euro, the Intergovernmental Conference and 'Citizens First', said: “Informing the people is a fundamental requirement of democracy. This is particularly true at a time of major change for European society, and its political and institutional structures.”

CoR President Pasqual Maragall added: “Today the Committee of the Regions acts as a real institutional bridge between decision-making at Community level, and the EU's local and regional authorities. Communication with the public has become its natural calling.”

A ground-breaking conference with delegates from the CoR, the European Parliament and local decision-makers last year underlined the growing pressure for a local voice in Union policy.

Delegates argued that since it was ultimately local operators who had to enforce policy, they should have more influence over what that policy was.

Although the still-young CoR has shied away from demanding more direct influence, it is calling for the right to take the Commission and member states to the European Court of Justice for alleged breaches of the subsidiarity rule.

As yet, the suggestion has not attracted the approval of IGC negotiators. As they struggle to agree on the Union's 'big issues', local involvement is likely to remain a one-way process for some time to come.

“The indications at the moment are that the member states are not well disposed towards that request,” admitted CoR spokesman Oliver Allen. “But I reject any suggestion that it is not a valid idea. It depends on how you interpret the IGC. If, as some politicians believe, it is a fine-tuning exercise, then this is exactly the sort of thing that should be considered.”