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The Committee of the Regions considers multilevel governance to mean coordinated action by the European Union, the Member States and local and regional authorities, based on partnership and aimed at drawing up and implementing EU policies. It leads to responsibility being shared between the different tiers of government concerned and is underpinned by all sources of democratic legitimacy and the representative nature of the different players involved;

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recommends that each major Community strategic reform should be accompanied by a regional action plan agreed between the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions, setting out the political mechanisms to facilitate the ownership, implementation and evaluation of the policies adopted, and including a decentralised communication plan;

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establishing appropriate tools to support participatory democracy, particularly in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy, social agenda, Gothenburg Strategy and development of ‘Local Agenda 21’type mechanisms, which are participatory and integrated mechanisms developing long-term strategic plans;

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recommends reinforcing the partnership practice, both vertically between ‘local and regional authorities — national government and European Union’ and horizontally between ‘local and regional authorities — civil society’, particularly in the context of social dialogue;

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invites the Commission and the Member States to reform the open method of coordination to make it more inclusive, by developing participatory governance indicators and territorial indicators, in conjunction with regional and local authorities;

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recommends that the territorial impact analysis should become standard practice through the involvement, upstream of the policy decision, of the various actors concerned in order to understand the economic, social and environmental repercussions on the regions of Community legislative and non-legislative proposals;

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undertakes to submit proposals to support the use of experimentation at local and regional level in certain areas of intervention of the European Union, such as the strategy for growth and jobs, the social agenda, integration policy, innovation policy, cohesion policy, sustainable development and civil defence;

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recommends establishing European territorial pacts capable of bringing together, on a voluntary basis, the different competent tiers of government in order to adapt the implementation of the major political priorities and objectives of the European Union on a partnership basis with the local and regional authorities and invites local and regional authorities interested in committing to such a process to indicate their interest as part of the consultation on the implementation of the White Paper.

Rapporteurs:

:

Luc Van den Brande (BE/EPP), Member of the Flemish Parliament, President of the Committee of the Regions

Michel Delebarre (FR/PES), Mayor of Dunkirk, First Vice-President of the Committee of the Regions

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accepting globalisation and the emergence of a multi-polar world that determines the issues to be addressed by the European Union; and

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continuing the process of European integration that abolishes borders, unifies markets and brings people closer together whilst respecting national sovereignties and preserving identities.

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the danger that our societies will become completely uniform: diversity is a value worth promoting;

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the danger that inequalities will grow within and between Member States: solidarity is a value that must be defended.

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The Special Eurobarometer 307 Report on the role and impact of local and regional authorities within the European Union, published in February 2009, highlights the fact that shared governance seems natural for Europeans. The results of this survey, conducted among 27 000 European citizens in the 27 Member States during the autumn of 2008, show that citizens consider that their national political representatives, Members of the European Parliament and local and regional political representatives are equally able to defend their personal interests at European level (29 % trust in their national political representatives, 26 % in their MEPs and 21 % in local and regional representatives).

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It confirms that citizens expect a Europe more in step with their day-to-day lives and reliant on the actions of their local and regional elected representatives. In fact, 59 % of them consider that local and regional authorities are not sufficiently taken into account in the European process.

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It demonstrates their attachment to local and regional democracy, illustrated by the level of trust that they place in their local and regional elected representatives (50 %) in comparison with the government of their country (34 %) and the European Union (47 %).

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In conclusion, this Eurobarometer encourages the establishment of decentralised communication strategies: 26 % of Europeans consider that local and regional elected representatives are best placed to explain how European policies impact on their daily lives (28 % for national political representatives and 21 % for Members of the European Parliament).

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initiate a consultation process with a view to drawing up a European Union Charter on multilevel governance, which would establish the principles and methods for developing a common and shared understanding of European governance, based on respect for the principle of subsidiarity, which would support local and regional governance and the process of decentralisation in the Member States, candidate countries and neighbouring states, and which would stand as a guarantee of the political will to respect the independence of local and regional authorities and their involvement in the European decision-making process;

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encourage the protection of fundamental rights at various levels and cooperate to this end with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in order to promote and disseminate the best practices developed at local and regional level (11);

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take part in the Community debate and future negotiations in order to advocate an ambitious Community budget which will have the necessary resources to anticipate responses to global challenges and implement integrated and coordinated strategies, and which will form the anchorage and leverage for partnerships contracted between the different public levels.

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that each major Community strategic reform should be accompanied by a regional action plan agreed between the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions, setting out the political mechanisms to facilitate the ownership, implementation and evaluation of the policies adopted, and including a decentralised communication plan. This measure would allow a sea change in the current process, which too often leaves local and regional authorities out of the Community action design phase;

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that the growth and stability pacts produced by the Member States, and their evaluation by the European Commission, should take proper account of the quantitative and qualitative dimension of local and regional finances and should more closely involve local and regional authorities in the process of controlling public spending.

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reinforce, in accordance with its Mission Statement, its status as a political assembly, its involvement upstream of the decision-making process in the design of European strategies and Community legislation, monitoring of the principle of subsidiarity in the spirit and tenor of the Treaty of Lisbon, evaluation of the territorial impact of Community policies, and its role as a facilitator of participatory democracy in Europe;

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develop, to this end, its interinstitutional relations with the European Commission with a view to revising its cooperation agreement, with the European Parliament in the context of the policy programme for the next legislative term and, finally, with the Council of the European Union in order to harmonise the intergovernmental dynamic of the political action of local and regional elected representatives in designing and implementing European decisions;

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continue its work to get closer to the national parliamentary assemblies and regional legislative assemblies, particularly within the process of monitoring subsidiarity.

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invite the CoR to participate systematically in the formal or informal Councils on Community policies falling within the areas in which they must be consulted or involving in particular the responsibilities of local and regional authorities;

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allow the CoR to take advantage of access to Council documents, in the same way as the other European institutions participating in the preparation of Community legislation.

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put in place, where there is no possibility of formal representation within the Council or its preparatory commissions, internal processes of consultation and coordination with local and regional authorities with electronic access to the Member States' database for monitoring draft EU legislation, in order both to take account of their know-how in the preparation of the national position and to provide an opportunity for them to take part in subsidiarity monitoring;

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strengthen and enhance existing mechanisms for preparing the national position and for formal representation in the Council, so that these mechanisms are fully in line with the distribution of competences as established in the relevant constitutional system.

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strengthen political and institutional cooperation with the European Parliament to ensure that the concerns of citizens are taken into account in the design and implementation of Community action;

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support the pilot initiative of an ‘Erasmus programme for local and regional elected representatives’ and cooperate to this end with the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission on its conceptual and operational development, and encourage the introduction of training programmes and experience and good practice exchange programmes intended for local and regional elected representatives.

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councils of local and regional elected representatives to devote special sessions to European integration and European policies and to involve, in their debates, representatives of the various European institutions engaged in shared governance.

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The Covenant of Mayors is a political initiative which seeks to unite the Mayors of European towns and cities around a shared goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 2020: 20 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, 20 % improvement in energy efficiency and 20 % use of renewable energies in the consumption of energy.

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Cities and regions are responsible for over half of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the use of energy in human activities. It was therefore essential to create an appropriate framework so that cities, regions and Member States could assume responsibility in the fight against climate change.

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By signing this Covenant, Mayors voluntarily commit to implementing an Action Plan for sustainable energy in their community. The Covenant allows pioneering experiments to be shared, facilitates the exchange of good practices and increases the awareness of citizens and local socioeconomic actors with regard to sustainable energy use.

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The Committee of the Regions is working with the European Commission to develop this initiative and plans to extend it to regional authorities. The action plans of towns and cities actually need to fit within the context of regional and national action plans.

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To reinforce the effectiveness of the Covenant of Mayors, it is also essential that the political mobilisation on the ground is followed by specific responses in terms of European policy and funding: loans from the European Investment Bank should be readily accessible for local authorities and regions willing to invest in energy efficiency programmes and promote the use of renewable energy sources.

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In order to give the renewed Euro-Mediterranean Partnership a territorial dimension and to ensure local and regional political representation within it, the Committee of the Regions has decided to set up the Euro-Mediterranean Local and Regional Assembly (ARLEM).

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The Euro-Mediterranean Heads of State and Government who met in Paris on 13 July 2008 supported the political initiative of the Committee of the Regions. ARLEM aims to enhance this partnership through a local and regional dimension and, consequently, to guarantee appropriate representation of local and regional authorities and their active participation in its governance. It enables local and regional authorities to produce concrete results and to make this partnership a tangible reality for citizens.

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ARLEM consists of an equal number of local and regional representatives of the EU and its Mediterranean partners and aims to be recognised as a consultative assembly of the new governance of the Union for the Mediterranean. It will also focus on the participation of local and regional authorities in specific projects in a wide range of areas such as business development, the environment, energy, transport, education, culture, migration, health and decentralised cooperation. By promoting the exchange of good practices, it will encourage territorial cooperation and offer new paths for dialogue.

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evaluate the experiences of local and regional authorities during previous enlargements, assisted by its working groups on the Western Balkans, Turkey and Croatia, and by the Joint Consultative Committee for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia;

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develop the political and operational potential of local and regional assemblies in support of the European neighbourhood policy; insists in this respect on the importance of interinstitutional cooperation and coordination with the other existing mechanisms;

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drive, in partnership with the European Commission, the ‘decentralised cooperation stock exchange’, in the form of an Internet portal, in order to organise, using virtual means, the exchange of information between European local and regional authorities active in development cooperation, thus helping to match up the projects of European local and regional authorities and developing countries (19);

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strengthen its institutional position as a body of the European Union which is responsible for the development of local and regional democracy in the framework of the EU's external policy, through electoral observation missions in Europe and third countries, and reinforce its cooperation to this end with the European Commission and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

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consider adopting a voluntary political charter on the involvement of local and regional authorities in the enlargement process, which would form a common reference for developing the pre-accession aid instrument in line with the needs of local and regional authorities and for reinforcing cross-border cooperation and the institutional and administrative capacity of the local and regional structures of candidate and potential candidate countries (20).

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Each year the Committee of the Regions and the Directorate-General for Regional Policy of the European Commission organise Open Days in Brussels as part of the ‘European Week of Regions and Cities’. Within the framework of an interinstitutional partnership extended to the presidency of the Union and to the European Parliament, this event brings together over 7 000 participants and nearly 250 partners. Official partners for the event are regions and their liaison offices in Brussels, together with numerous local partners, such as local associations and research institutes. These partners play a leading role in organising the numerous seminars, workshops and much of the Open Days' main programme.

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On a theme linked to the Community agenda and to the European priorities of local and regional authorities, events, seminars, workshops, media-targeted activities and exhibitions bring together, with European, national, regional and local politicians, experts and representatives of socioeconomic circles, trade unions, financial organisations and civil society.

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This event in Brussels is accompanied by events in the partner cities and regions, thereby encouraging the exchange of experiences, the interconnection of networks and the comparison of ideas and expertise (21).

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develop a sustained approach for collaboration with relevant networks at local and regional level, which foster interconnection and interaction in European society between the political, economic, associative and cultural spheres, and take account of the best participation practices at local and regional level;

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help to implement a genuine decentralised communication policy, the scope of which was recognised in the joint declaration of the European Parliament, European Commission and Council on ‘Communicating Europe in partnership’ (23), which depends on the political involvement of institutional actors to constantly drive the European debate in European cities and regions and report the decisions taken at Community level;

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establish an action plan which differentiates between the communication tools according to the set objectives and political areas concerned, so that communication on strategy and common policies is coherent with their result for citizens at local and regional level, and submit the appropriate recommendations to the Interinstitutional Group on Information (IGI) (24);

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propose methods and tools to be used at local and regional level in order to bridge the communication gap and encourage increased coverage by local and regional media of the impact of EU policies on the daily life of citizens and to boost their potential for communication, information and mediation on Europe by using new communication tools, particularly the Web 2.0 instrument.

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establishing appropriate tools to support participatory democracy, particularly in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy, social agenda, Gothenburg Strategy and development of ‘Local Agenda 21’type mechanisms, which are participatory and integrated mechanisms developing long-term strategic plans (25);

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exploring the scope for cooperation, once the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force, between itself, local and regional authorities and the other EU institutions with regard to developing the instrument of a European Citizens initiative in order to realise its potential to foster a genuine European political debate and thus improve the legitimacy of the EU's multilevel governance system;

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improving European civic education through the know-how of local and regional authorities.

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to take account of new parameters in its evaluation of the opinion of European citizens (Eurobarometer), as these parameters indicate the real engagement of local and regional authorities in the functioning of the European Union and the implementation of common policies and strategies.

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the Member States to implement more inclusive e-governance for cities and regions and the latter to convey, via their communication policy and their system of e-governance, an increased awareness of the achievements of the European Union and its challenges for the citizens;

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the Community institutions to put in place a Web 2.0 type communication strategy and use the new Internet social sites such as YouTube/EU Tube.

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For 20 years cohesion policy has consistently proven its added value and has become for citizens, through the development of specific projects, the perfect example of European solidarity. It has developed over time: created to accompany the launch of the single market in order to ensure the development of the weakest regions, it has helped to mitigate the socioeconomic disparities generated by successive enlargements of the Union. It has also become an important tool for supporting the strategy for growth and jobs in all the EU territories. Recently it has been required to support the European Economic Recovery Plan.

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European cohesion policy, which currently represents one-third of the Community budget, has a real financial leverage and interinstitutional partnership effect, boosted by the use of public-private partnerships and financial tools of the European Investment Bank. The leverage effect of European cohesion policy can also be seen in its capacity to encourage harmony at European level between local, regional and national strategic development priorities.

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Another notable aspect of the leverage effect associated with the use of the Structural Funds is the reinforcement of the institutional abilities of governments. By stimulating their management capacity and harmonising their procedures at European level, cohesion policy has encouraged the implementation of Community policies. Finally, due to the virtues of the partnership and cooperation between public institutions and civil society actors, cohesion policy has led to the establishment of comprehensive solutions to differing situations within the European Union.

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To provide a broader definition of territorial cohesion that takes into account the new challenges faced by regional and local authorities (globalisation, climate change, energy security, immigration, etc.), the specific objectives for which European funding is given need to be defined in a more flexible way which allows for the fact that each region has very different characteristics and each has its own competitiveness and sustainability strategy.

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plan and launch initiatives aimed at disseminating good practices in the area of partnership, linked to the definition of local, regional, national and supranational political priorities in the Member States, and support all the initiatives launched by the Member States, the European Parliament and the European Commission in order to apply the principle of partnership with local and regional authorities, not only during the policy implementation phase but also, and above all, during the preparation of these policies;

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propose interinstitutional mechanisms reinforcing the political and strategic nature of the evaluation of European cohesion policy, by consolidating the reports drawn up at national and regional level within a European framework of analysis and projection.

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reinforcing the partnership practice, both vertically between ‘local and regional authorities — national government and European Union’ and horizontally between ‘local and regional authorities — civil society’, particularly in the context of social dialogue, ensuring that Europeans can participate through the bodies which have been set up for the purpose by the different public authorities, especially those authorities which — due to their geographic location or the principle of subsidiarity — are closest to the European people. This will allow different social groups to put forward their opinions on aspects of EU initiatives and make suggestions;

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simplifying and rationalising administrative procedures in order to establish a legal, administrative and financial framework that is capable of innovative action, and creating new tools to foster regional innovation and increase methods of financing (venture capital, business angels, micro-credits, etc.);

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reinforcing the administrative capabilities of local and regional authorities in order to guarantee competent management of projects and increase exchanges of good practices in the European Union in terms of regional governance;

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study on a case-by-case basis the possible changes to Community policies in terms of a reinforced partnership;

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encourage coordination between the actions of the Structural Funds, sectoral programmes and rural development programmes;

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evaluate the progress made in simplifying and decentralising the management of the Structural Funds during the period 2007-2013, looking in particular at the proportionality of administrative burdens with regard to the type and size of the action and to the effects these have on local and regional authorities.

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In 2006 the Committee of the Regions set up a Lisbon Monitoring Platform (LMP), which now consists of over one hundred regions and cities from 26 Member States. This exchange and evaluation network monitors the involvement of local and regional authorities in the governance of the Lisbon Strategy and its link with cohesion policy.

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In its monitoring report: ‘Achieving the Lisbon goals through coordinated and integrated territorial policymaking’, it underlines the need for all the relevant government levels to step up a gear towards the synchronisation and integration of their policy agendas and to adopt a wider range of legal tools.

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During the European Summit of the Regions and Cities in Prague on 5-6 March 2009 the Committee of the Regions specifically launched a consultation process on the future strategy for growth and jobs, with a view to the local and regional authorities participating upstream of its design (www.lisbon.cor.europa.eu).

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In order to improve the framework conditions for businesses, particularly SMEs, the Committee of the Regions intends to create an innovative prize designed to identify the most enterprising regions across the European Union. The label of ‘the most enterprising European region’ awarded each year will give the regions an incentive to develop a strategic plan of long-term economic and social reforms that will be widely supported by the population and local stakeholders.

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In this way the Committee of the Regions aims to give added impetus to the launch of the new strategy for growth and jobs post-Lisbon, while ensuring the widespread use of the 10 principles of the ‘Small Business Act’ of the European Union at local and regional level.

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examine the opinions on an open method of regionalised coordination and determine the areas of Community action in which the open method of coordination would be most appropriate for the local and regional authorities, by considering, in particular, immigration and integration policy, innovation and education;

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present to the European Council in March 2010 the results of the consultation with local and regional authorities on the future of the Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs.

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on the Member States to support the open method of coordination through local or regional action plans and, conversely, to help ensure that regional and local plans are taken into account in national plans and are the subject of multilevel written agreements; and, as a result, calls on the European Commission to recognise the existence of regional and local contact points in the context of monitoring the open method of coordination.

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reform the open method of coordination to make it more inclusive, by developing, in conjunction with regional and local authorities, more effective participatory governance indicators and territorial indicators (29);

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identify, in close collaboration with local and regional authorities, the obstacles to the application of the single market which are currently being faced by the regions, cities and municipalities, and the appropriate solutions to adapt the single market to the current economic and social context;

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ensure the local and regional authorities are properly involved in revising the Lisbon Strategy post-2010.

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The development of an integrated maritime policy for the EU represents one of the rare examples at European level of an attempted common approach to several sectoral policies based on a territorial typology. The process, which began with the Green Paper in 2006 and continued with the Blue Paper, has heavily involved local and regional players interested in developing an integrated approach to the management of maritime areas: transport, environment, renewable energies and economic development are some of the sectors covered by a policy born of the ambition to integrate, in a horizontal manner, the requirements linked to sustainable development and to the safety of our seas, at last recognised as natural and economic resources that are crucial to the European continent.

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This ambition must be accompanied by appropriate mechanisms to reinforce the federating effect of an integrated maritime political vision. In this regard, the Committee of the Regions believes that it is necessary to change the EU's financing mechanism to a single simplified system, which would bring together all maritime issues — or the majority of them — within a European Coast and Island Fund, and to create a European marine platform, uniting local and regional authorities and the relevant players to give an instrument which can help divide up the responsibilities and disseminate good practices.

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consultation as part of the legislative process, particularly with the Committee of the Regions, as the institutional representative of local and regional authorities;

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mechanisms for sectoral consultation, which take account of the specific conditions for EU intervention in its various policy fields;

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the establishment of a coherent consultation framework with minimum standards for consultation;

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structured dialogue with the associations representing local and regional authorities.

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develop cooperation with the European Commission and European and national associations of local and regional authorities within the framework of Structured Dialogue in the phase for preparing the legislative work programme of the European Commission;

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work with the other EU Institutions to develop an effective impact assessment of its activities, in order to strengthen its role as an advisory body under the Treaties and to demonstrate the added-value it brings to EU decision-making.

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report on the follow-up given to its political recommendations in the form of oral and written questions.

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The principle of subsidiarity seeks to ensure that, in areas of non-exclusive Community responsibility, decisions are taken at the most appropriate level. As a result, in these areas, tests must be carried out to ensure that Community action is justified with regard to the options available at national, regional or local level.

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The Subsidiarity Monitoring Network set up by the Committee of the Regions, which currently consists of 96 members (local and regional authorities, national and regional parliaments, associations of local and regional authorities), conducts online consultations via its Internet site. It has the following objectives:

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Organise consultations with partners in the network on European Commission documents and proposals, which help to analyse the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and assess the impact of measures proposed. In so doing, the Network aids communication between local and regional authorities and the Committee of the Regions with regard to the European legislative process;

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Serve as an information point allowing local and regional authorities to access more quickly information of interest to them in connection with the EU and to give them an additional route for making their voices heard;

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Help the Committee of the Regions to broaden its consultation base by giving it access to the political and administrative structures of the regions and cities of Europe and by placing these resources at the disposal of its rapporteurs;

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Involve members of the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network in future studies on the territorial impact of the Commission's proposals, at an early stage in the pre-legislative process.

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increase its involvement in the process of monitoring the ‘Better Lawmaking’ action plan and develop its internal policy process and its consultations through interactive platforms in order to obtain reliable information on how the local and regional dimension is taken into account in the preparation of legislation;

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strengthen its interinstitutional relations throughout the legislative process with the Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament;

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develop with national parliaments and regional legislative assemblies a ‘modus operandi ’ in order to enhance the position of local and regional authorities in all Member States both in the ex-ante phase and in the context of the early warning system (33);

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contribute to the work of the High Level Group of Independent Stakeholders on Administrative Burdens, give an opinion on the suggestions that it makes and plan to set up a High Level Group of Local and Regional Authorities.

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the ‘Better Lawmaking’ interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission to be accompanied by a memorandum of understanding with the Committee of the Regions on implementing certain evaluation and consultation mechanisms in particular.

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continue the efforts being made to simplify the regulatory environment, particularly in terms of cohesion policy, and introduce a regional aspect in national action plans to simplify legislation;

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ensure ready access for local and regional authorities to comitology and to groups of experts responsible for implementing the ‘Better Lawmaking’ action plan (34)  (35).

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set up a mechanism for consulting local and regional authorities with a view to facilitating the transposition of European legislation;

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ensure that when European legislation is transposed and applied, the internal distribution of competences is respected;

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through the Council of Europe, continue to work towards the proposed Charter for Regional Democracy.

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reinforce cooperation with the European Commission in implementing its cooperation agreement in order to convey the reasoned opinions of local and regional authorities on the impact analysis of Commission proposals at an early stage in the legislative process;

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set up, with the support of the European Commission's impact analysis committee, a technical ‘high level group’ responsible for evaluating the territorial impact of major Community policies in order to adopt measures likely to improve legislation, simplify administrative procedures and increase the acceptance of Community policies by the citizens.

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that the territorial impact analysis should become standard practice through the involvement, upstream of the policy decision, of the various actors concerned in order to understand the economic, social and environmental repercussions on the regions of Community legislative and non-legislative proposals;

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reinforcing the territorial impact evaluation mechanisms ready for when substantial modifications are proposed to the original proposals during the legislative process;

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developing the conditions for an ex-post evaluation in order to examine the local and regional impact of certain directives, or even the implementation at local and regional level of European legislative acts and have the findings incorporated by the Commission into its evaluation report;

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that European and national statistics should reflect the diversity of the territorial situation in order to more accurately understand the impact of policies on the regions.

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ensure that its various road maps, established to measure the progress of certain key policies for European integration, include the variable of multilevel governance so as to evaluate the true impact of Community intervention, and stresses in this respect the need to reinforce the local and regional dimension of the Internal Market road map.

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The EGTC is a new European legal instrument (Regulation (EC) No 1082/2006) designed to stabilise territorial cooperation between the different tiers of government and across borders. It is particularly relevant in view of strengthening territorial cohesion policy. Around 30 EGTCs are being set up in Europe and six have already been established.

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The dimension of multilevel governance is at the heart of the process to launch, establish and manage an EGTC. The latter allows public authorities to be brought together, according to a variable institutional geometry, by virtue of their levels of responsibility and to promote an enlarged partnership with socioeconomic actors. The areas of application of the EGTC, according to emerging experience, are varied: from health to civil defence, from economic development to the protection and promotion of natural resources, from training to research and innovation policy, etc.

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The Committee of the Regions is working in concert with local and regional authorities, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States to optimise the potential of this tool and facilitate the creation of a public space for communication, information, analysis, research and pooling of expertise.

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The Strategy for the Baltic Sea region aims to reinvigorate cooperation within this maritime area in order to improve the environmental status of the region, support its sustainable economic development, increase its level of accessibility and add to its level of security. This integrated and participatory strategy, which is currently being developed, is a typical example of the implementation of multi-sectoral policies, led by numerous actors and focused on a European macro-region. It aims to integrate the different lines of programming and financing at European, national and infranational level, with the possibility of using the cohesion policy programmes as a reference framework.

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Governance will determine the degree of success of this strategy. Its development demands a multilevel approach, with reinforced cooperation between the European, national, regional and local levels and also at cross-border level and between the public and private sectors (36).

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evaluate the relevance of macro-regional development strategies in the light of the involvement of local and regional authorities in their design, preparation, implementation, communication to the citizens and evaluation phases, and in their respective action plans, and in this case demand sufficient provision in the Community budget for appropriate financial mechanisms and resources;

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cooperate with the European Commission, Member States and other institutions involved on a major action involving communication and operational support for the implementation of new EGTCs and for the exchange of good practices in the context of those EGTCs already established;

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make its contribution with a view to a possible revision of Regulation (EC) No 1082/2006 on the EGTC, based on the experience of its Group of Experts (37), particularly with regard to greater integration of the socioeconomic partners, easier implementation at the external borders of the EU, greater flexibility in the installation procedures, a reference in the main European legislative texts particularly affected by the cross-border dimension (e.g. cross-border health), planning of stimulus measures, including legal, economic and financial stimuli, whether at European level or at national level, and promotion of this tool in the Community legislation in Europe.

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that additional resources should be allocated to the three aspects of territorial cooperation, due to its indisputable contribution to the process of European integration.

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on the European Commission to announce, in its next evaluation/revision report on the EGTC Regulation, how it plans to fully exploit this legal tool;

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on the European Commission and the Member States to increase awareness of this tool by very significantly expanding the internal information within the Directorates-General and Ministries and by enhancing its added value;

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on the Member States to work closely with the regional and local authorities in the process of setting up EGCTs so that they can be rolled out and implemented diligently in accordance with the letter and spirit of Regulation 1082/2006.

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submit proposals to support the use of experimentation at local and regional level in certain areas of intervention of the European Union, such as the strategy for growth and jobs, the social agenda, integration policy, innovation policy, cohesion policy, sustainable development and civil defence;

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develop lines of action to make more frequent use of the method of controlled experimentation in order to understand the effects of wide-ranging reforms of the common policies, particularly the common agricultural policy;

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defend the prospect of concluding contracts of agreed objectives, as envisaged in 2001, by proposing to readjust the political and legal terms of implementation, particularly with the aid of flexible and diversified tripartite instruments. In doing so, it is especially important to fully respect the Member States' institutional and procedural autonomy in transposing and above all implementing Community law.

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establishing European territorial pacts capable of bringing together, on a voluntary basis, the different competent tiers of government in order to adapt the implementation of the major political priorities and objectives of the European Union on a partnership basis with the local and regional authorities (38);

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planning for European territorial pacts to include the commitment of an institution or agency of the European Union, the commitment of national authorities and one or more local and regional authorities, the identification of the European political objectives to be achieved, their breakdown into concrete aims in the region in question, a monitoring system and, finally, the definition of a budgetary structure bringing together the contributions of the various parties needed to achieve this.

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any discussion of the issue of funding European territorial pacts to be focused on potential synergies between, on the one hand, at European level, existing budget headings in the policy areas concerned and the Structural Funds and, on the other hand, budget resources available at local, regional and national level, without creating an additional Community regional policy instrument or applying for additional funding to achieve the aim in question;

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local and regional authorities interested in committing to such a process to indicate their interest as part of the consultation on the implementation of the White Paper.

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