The Committee of the Regions (CoR) on 3rd of April adopted the Charter for Multilevel Governance in Europe. Europe Day, 9 May 2014, will mark the launch of the campaign to acquire signatures to the Charter.
The Charter urges public authorities to make a political commitment to implementing the values, principles and mechanisms of multilevel governance. By signing up to the Charter, towns and regions will undertake to make use of the potential of multilevel governance in the management of public policies, to launch initiatives and projects in partnership with different levels of authority (territorial, national and European), to develop territorial cooperation instruments and to modernise their administration along the lines of the charter.
The Charter also aims to make other levels of authority (European institutions, national governments and international organisations) aware of the added value of this type of governance when pursuing policy action.
The principles underlying multilevel governance advocated in the Charter, namely subsidiarity and partnership, are reflected in instruments and processes which promote the participation of various stakeholders in decision-making, namely: partnership contracts which, as part of the EU's new cohesion policy, and the obligation now on Member States, as part of the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy, to involve territorial authorities in preparing national reform programmes.
The Charter (available as PDF) will be put on line and open for electronic signature by cities and regions on Committee of the Regions web page.
Association "Baltic Interregional Development hub" informs about current developments in EU policies and promotes citizens' participation in political processes. The preparation and development of the news releases is part of the project’s „Support for Civic Participation in Sustainable Cooperation" activities. The project is supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
