Mercedes Bresso, President of the Committee of the Regions

Interview with The Courier

MB   Our advantage is that to be President of the COR we have to be elected to local office. I attended the COR as President of the province of Turin  (Italy) and subsequently for the region of Piedmont (Italy) but most importantly, as a locally elected representative. The COR must be consulted on a number of issues. But with the Treaty of Lisbon, we began to acquire more real power, with the right to issue a warning and especially the right to go to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) if we find a violation of the subsidiarity  principle in legislation or in European policy. Local powers use 70 per cent of EU legislation, either by directly applying it through transposition at State level, or transforming it into local laws when they legislate. It is thanks to the COR that there is a step by step process of decentralisation in Europe.

HG – Is this decentralisation limited in some States because of an historically strong tradition of centralised government?

MB - No, the move towards decentralisation is everywhere. Situations do vary across the EU. In Italy, the state implements the EU directives and regions apply it in practice. In Spain the regions have gained real power. There has been a complete restructuring in Greece and it now has regions of sufficient size with real power. Denmark has made great reforms. Belgium has long since implemented reforms, and its regions possess legislative power in matters within their jurisdiction. Germany has always been decentralised. Over-centralisation exists in France, which has an overabundance of local authorities with some 36,000 communes, which necessitates annoying and superfluous structures for basic coordination. However, Holland has different procedures. The Queen nominally appoints Mayors although in reality it is the governmental majority which selects the employees who are appointed. This has been highlighted by the Council of Europe, with the Charter of Local Authorities, and it has always been considered a borderline case.

HG - Can there be true democracy without large scale regionalisation?

I always insist, and this is true of African countries or those of Eastern Europe, that you can check up on the real state of health of a democracy based on the existence, or lack thereof, of a strong system of local democracy. If it does not exist, for example if the mayor is appointed, there is no authority for the citizen to control and punish those who mismanage.

Hegel Goutier