Oberkirch (A), 2 March 2001
At the invitation of Mr Stächele, Secretary of State of Baden-Württemberg (D) and President of the AER Institutional Committee, the political Bureau of the Assembly of European Regions held a meeting on Friday 2nd March in Oberkirch.
Under the chair of Mrs Prokop, AER President, Bureau members were informed on the activities of the four AER Committees and of the three resolutions produced by the Institutional Committee concerning the new Fundamental European System, the “White paper on European Governance” and enlargement which form the basis of the positions of the regions of Europe in the debate on the future structure of the European Union in particular.
Among the major claims of the regions of Europe can be found:
– the constitution of a Fundamental European System including the regions and underlining the principle of subsidiarity;
– a more precise legal definition of this principle in the European constitutional Treaty;
– a distribution of competences based on the principle of subsidiarity in order to protect the autonomy of member States and regions and a clear definition of competences;
– increased involvement of the regions in European decision-making thanks to the transformation of the Committee of the Regions into a fully fledged body of the Union with the same rights as the other institutions,….
The AER Bureau was also delighted with the initiative of the Institutional Committee to create two working groups, one on European Governance and the other on the Fundamental European System, which will allow the AER to prepare its contribution for the next Intergovernmental Conference in 2004.
Willi Stächele, President of this Committee, declared the following on the subject of post-Nice: “A satisfactory distribution of competences requires a debate on the clarification of responsibilities in which the regions must be fully implicated. At the Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 the foundations of a Fundamental European System will be set. The AER must, now, formulate the main points of the opinion of the regions in order to influence the discussion concerning the bases of this Fundamental European System at the appropriate time.”
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