Newsletter – n°16 – November 2012

The world at a glance

The European Commission organised a regional seminar of the structured dialogue with local and regional authorities of the Southern Neighbourhood in Tunis on 20, 21 and 22 November 2012. PLATFORMA, represented by several of its members such as the AIMF, the CEMR and SKL International, was very attentive to the messages emerging from the talks, especially concerning the future Communication.

Indeed, the participants, including elected representatives, technical staff from associations and administrations and representatives of the European Union, had a discussion on the future Communication on local authorities in development and on the challenges related to decentralisation in a macro-region characterised by strong centralisation and shaken by unprecedented changes in the past two years. 

The participants debated on good governance at local level, on territorial development, on decentralisations and urban development, and underlined that the democratisation and decentralisation processes went hand in hand, as decentralisation offered a space for consultation between the citizen and the local authorities. They thus recalled the importance of placing citizens at the heart of the policies implemented and of working with civil society organisations. They agreed on the need for capacity building and resource enhancing of local administrations before any new competences can be transferred to them. In this field, North-South and South-South decentralised cooperation seems an efficient framework for the exchange of good practices and institutional capacity building. Finally, they called on the EU to work directly with local authorities and demanded direct access to European funds.

The third day of the seminar was dedicated to an exchange of views on decentralisation. PLATFORMA had the opportunity to explain the European perspective on the support that the Commission should bring to the decentralisation process in partner countries and on the actions carried out by European local authorities in this field.

PLATFORMA underlined the need for a clear division of competences between the different government levels, the importance of reinforcing national associations of local and regional authorities and called on the Commission to apply the principles of the “Agenda for change”, such as the reinforcement of the local authorities’ role in democratisation and the reinforcement of democratic governance. PLATFORMA also called on EU Delegations to work with national associations of local governments and to develop consultation frameworks, in view of programming and implementing cooperation programmes.

This seminar and the discussions that took place represent a good reflection basis for the PLATFORMA regional seminar which will be organised with the local and regional authorities of the Maghreb, in the framework of the project “Dialogue and capacity building of local and regional authorities in EU partner countries”.