Nieuwe basis voor samenwerking met ECOSOC en Comité voor de Regio's (en)

A new cooperation agreement between the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) was signed today, Monday 17 December, by the presidents of the two institutions, Michel Delebarre and Dimitris Dimitriadis, and their secretaries-general, Gerhard Stahl and Patrick Venturini.

The first agreement was signed in 1999, following the provisions introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty. This agreement established the joint services of the two Committees. The aim was to allow the Committee of the Regions to acquire functional maturity and to encourage co-operation which would be mutually beneficial to both institutions. The CoR and the EESC thus entered upon a form of interinstitutional cooperation which was without precedent in the European Union. The joint services, which provide a real "production chain" for the two Committees, particularly with regard to translation needs, currently employ some 700 officials, with a budget of EUR 38.5 million.

The new agreement will take effect on 1 January 2008 and will run for a period of seven years.

It is the result of political consultations and administrative negotiations between the two institutions, involving staff representatives, with the aim of increasing further the efficiency of the two administrations.

Whilst recognising each other's distinct institutional roles and political identities, the Committees undertake, on the basis of their institutional autonomy, to reform their administrative cooperation in a budgetarily neutral way, on the basis of the following principles:

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  a high standard of service to the members and administrations of both Committees;

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  a balanced service based on institutional equality;

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  respect for the identity and autonomy of each of the two institutions and their respective needs and priorities;

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  continuing modernisation of joint services management;

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  implementation of this agreement in a way that safeguards the quality of working conditions;

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  transparency of operation and accountability within the services, underpinned by a model of good governance;

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  guaranteed equal treatment of officials and other staff employed in those services subject to joint organisation under the terms of this agreement;

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  a commitment to coordinate work, thereby helping secure, among other things, a more stable workload for the joint services, and a commitment to more extensive demand management in this area, including the monitoring of requests for internal translations;

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  a commitment to cooperation, solidarity and coordinated cooperation between the two administrations in their relations with third parties that involve the joint services, including relations with the budget authority and the control bodies;

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  long-term stability of this agreement.

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