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Recommendation 1461 (2000)
Council of Europe’s role in regional planning
1. The Council of Europe was the first
international organisation to consider regional planning at European level and
to organise the European Conferences of Ministers responsible for Regional
Planning (Cemat), the first of which was held in Bonn in 1970.The next
conference, the twelfth of its kind, will take place in Hanover on 7 and 8
September 2000.
2. This work has yielded texts, such as the European Charter on Regional
Planning (Torremolinos, 1983) and the European Regional Strategy (Lausanne,
1988), for example, which remain authoritative in this field.
3. In the early 1990s the Parliamentary Assembly felt it essential that
regional planning deliberation take proper account of geopolitical changes in
Europe since 1989, on the one hand, and of the growing importance of regional
planning in the development of an overall policy aimed at consistency in
economic, environmental and localgovernment matters and social cohesion on the
other.
4. At the 10th Cemat (Oslo, 1994) the Assembly accordingly put forward
proposals for updating the European Regional Planning Strategy adopted at
Lausanne and defining the Council of Europe’s new role in that field.
5. The proposals were based on three main lines of action: creating the
conditions necessary for sustainable development by building environmental
concerns into sectoral policies; through the wide involvement of local
authorities and, consequently, the extensive application of the subsidiarity
principle; and, lastly, economic and social cohesion;
6. Given, also, the growing significance of globalisation and its
consequences, it is essential that European planning policy anticipate their
impact regionally in order to deal appropriately with the effects on social
cohesion.
7. For its part, the European Union decided in the early 1990s to draw up a
European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) providing a set of guidelines
and a framework for Community regional development policy. Like the proposals
put forward by the Assembly, the ESDP aims at consistency of economic policy,
social cohesion, sustainable development and a regional competitiveness which
is kept in check by solidarity.
8. Finally, at its 11th session (Limassol, Cyprus, October 1997), the Cemat
likewise decided to draw up a set of guiding principles for sustainable spatial
development of the European continent, which would be submitted for adoption at
its next conference, in Hanover in September 2000.
9. The Assembly welcomed that decision as, in part, meeting its own concerns
and as an opportunity to stress the contribution which the Council of Europe
can make to a spatial development policy for greater Europe, an area in which
the Organisation has the capacity to develop action commensurate with both its
responsibilities and expertise and with the requirements of its member
countries.
10. While welcoming the fact that European Union member states were taking an
active part in drawing up the guiding principles, the Assembly insisted that
proper regard be given to the Council of Europe’s role and resources in the
matter, so that action by the two organisations develops within a single
coherent framework.
11. In particular it is important that the guiding principles submitted to
the Cemat should refer explicitly to Council of Europe activities and
instruments which can make a tangible contribution to spatial development in
greater Europe and meet the specific needs of some of its member countries,
particularly in central and eastern Europe.
12. In this connection, moreover, it stressed that the guiding principles
should pay closer attention to the special problems of some regions, such as
mountain regions, border regions and river basins.
13. With regard to mountain regions the Congress of Local and Regional
Authorities of Europe, with considerable support from the Assembly, has
submitted to the Committee of Ministers a draft European convention on mountain
regions aimed at helping to devise a policy for the sustainable development of
such regions.
14. To facilitate adoption of the convention, the Congress and the Assembly
have agreed that it should take the form of a framework convention which,
although less binding, would allow for a more flexible response – in the form
of special protocols – to the needs of some regions;
15. Deploring that the guiding principles make no explicit reference to the
draft convention while extensively drawing on its content, the Assembly invites
the Cemat to request that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe
respond to the stated needs of mountain regions and consider adopting the draft
convention in the form of a framework convention as soon as possible.
16. It is equally regrettable that the Guiding Principles make no mention of
the draft European Charter on the Danube basin, which it is important that the
Committee of Ministers reconsider for adoption.
17. In addition, the guiding principles do not give sufficient prominence to
transborder co-operation, in which the Council of Europe has extensive
experience and to which the second summit of heads of state and government
attached clear importance;
18. In view of the foregoing, and anxious to assert the Council of Europe’s
role in regional planning, the Assembly recommends that the Committee of
Ministers:
18.1. step up co-operation with the
European Union with a view to coherence and complementarity of
action;
18.2. develop relations with other sub-regional
intergovernmental organisations working in that field, such as Black Sea
Economic Co-operation (BSEC) and the Central European Initiative;
18.3. develop sectors of activity, such as transborder and interregional
co-operation, which are among the Organisation's priorities and which
contribute to the development of pan-European regional-planning
policy;
18.4. adopt the framework convention version of the draft
convention on mountain regions in order to cater for the requirements of
mountain regions, in particular those in central and eastern Europe;
18.5. reconsider the draft European charter on the Danube Basin with a view
to adopting it.