Website: Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies

The CALRE is the conference of chairmen of the legislative federal state parliaments of Europe. The chairmen who are CALRE-members are not at the head of the national parliaments of their respective countries, but lead of the parliament of a sector or region. Membership of the CALRE is limited to regions from the European Union. The extent to which the twenty seven member states of the Union have attributed autonomy to their sectors, differs from country to country. Certain countries, such as France and Holland are unitary states, meaning that only the central government has legislative power. Countries such as Germany and Belgium on the other hand are federations, meaning that the federal states have wide legislative power. In other countries, e.g. the United Kingdom and Portugal, certain sectors do have a parliament of their own, but the rest of the country has to acknowledge national laws.

• Primary Source

CALRE: Documents http://www.calrenet.eu/documents.aspx

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