Young people call to grow influence of Committee of the Regions within the EU (en)

As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, the Committee of the Regions invited today 150 young people offering them the opportunity to express their views on the future for Europe's regions and cities. After a full day of debate, the young people called for the expansion of the Committee of the Region's power through increasing its cooperation with the other EU institutions and moving towards a legislative expert status in the field of the EU cohesion policy. With growing apathy amongst young people towards the EU, they also recommended using funds to further develop educational programmes to improve and raise knowledge about the European project.

The Committee of the Regions' (CoR) First Vice-President, Mercedes Bresso i (IT/PES), opened the event with a clear statement: "In the EU, we need all levels of political responsibility because we can only grow together". Today, according to a Eurobarometer survey, citizens in the EU believe that local and regional authorities are not sufficiently taken into account, whereas the trust in those authorities is much higher than in EU representatives. Even if the CoR gives a direct voice to EU cities and regions in Brussels, it is principally an advisory body and, as such, it is mainly regarded as a source of expertise on local and regional dimensions - an argument sometimes used by critics to undermine its political legitimacy. Ms Bresso argued, however, that she was "confident that the next decade will see the political return of regional and local governments in both national and European arenas".

The delegation of young people stepped into the CoR members' shoes for a day to develop 18 concrete recommendations on the three "hot topics":

What should be the CoR future political priorities?

How can regions and cities bring Europe closer to the public?

How the CoR should fit into the EU's institutional architecture?

Debating the future of the CoR and local EU politics, the young participants proposed further developing its role as a consultative and territorial expert and as a legislative expert in EU cohesion policy. They also stressed the importance of working alongside national and regional parliaments in the policy debates implying enhanced cooperation with the other EU institutions and the establishment of stronger links with the political groups in Brussels. Moreover, the CoR should aim to take the first steps towards the harmonisation of the selection procedure of its members. Finally, the CoR and the European Parliament should be consulted on appointing the European Commissioner for Regional and Urban Policy.

Young people also tackled the issue of bringing Europe closer to the citizens by greater involvement of local representatives and civil society actors at local level in EU communications. Convinced by the key part that education has to play, they suggested investing more energy and funding in existing programmes that promote the EU in schools, especially from primary level. As many tools of communication have already been implemented, young people underlined the complexity of communicating the flow of information and called for a rationalisation of EU institutional communication efforts. The content of the communication should also be adapted to the target by becoming more attractive and understandable for local citizens. Finally, a bi-annual youth conference should be officially established in order to take seriously on board the concerns of the young citizens with regards to local and regional politics. More generally, they believe that the CoR should have its own initiative of opinion on communication by the EU institutions.

Luc Van den Brande (BE/EPP) Member of the CoR and Chairman of the Flemish-European Liaison Agency, gave his concluding remarks of what proved to be an animated debate welcoming, "An open dialogue between the Committee of the Regions, students and young professionals. The proposals for the future role of the Committee of the Regions demonstrate the great importance young people attach to an institution representing the regional and local authorities at EU level."

The results of the days discussions will be presented by the young people at the CoRs' 20th anniversary ceremony to be held at the CoR Plenary session on 25 June.