The Committee of the Regions of the European Union: organization and evolution (1993-2009)

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) is an institution that is unique for an international organization as it opens an opportunity for regions and municipalities, limited as it might be, to contribute to decision-making at inter-state and supranational levels. The article aims to analyze both the prerequisites for and the pre-history of the CoR's emergence and the evolution of its status from the establishment up to the Lisbon Treaty's entry into force. The paper relies on the sources such as the EU founding treaties, documents of the European Commission, Council and Parliament, CoR's rules of procedure. Focusing on the pre-history of CoR's establishment, the author analyzes the structure and functions of the Consultative Council of Regional and Local Authorities (CCRLA) established in 1988 at the European Commission's initiative. Its establishment was necessitated by the far-reaching reform of the EEC's regional policy carried out in the late 1980s. Members of the CCRLA were appointed by the European Commission, but the candidacies were suggested by the horizontally organized regional associations. Regional and municipal representatives worked in two different sections. When the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated, European regions, in particular the German Laender, launched a wide-scale campaign in support of organizing a fully fledged representation of regions within the system of EU institutions. This initiative was supported by the German government and was put into life through the establishment of a new consultative body, the Committee of the Regions. Also the status and symbolic importance of the CoR far exceeded those of the CCRLA, the appointment of its members became the prerogative of national governments, with the roles of regional organizations and associations lost. Moreover, the division into regional and municipal sections was not retained within the CoR's structure, which hampered the articulation of the interests of regions as such. The author argues that the subsequent treaties brought about the consolidation of the CoR's status and the expansion of the area of its activities, although the institution remained a consultative body. However, the Lisbon Treaty assigned the CoR the right to appeal, in certain cases, to the EU Court of Justice, a novelty which can be regarded as the expansion of CoR's role beyond a purely consultative one. At the same time the EU's enlargement resulted in the significant expansion of the representation of municipalities and "weak" regions within the CoR which in fact undermines the Committee's political weight and diminishes the "strong" regions' interest in the Committee as an instrument of the advancement of their political positions. The idea to divide the Committee into two chambers, those of the regions and of the municipalities, was not supported. Accordingly, the author makes a conclusion that the CoR's role remained secondary and the "strong" regions were compelled to shift the gravity center of their struggle for the consolidation of political influence to other arenas.

Keywords

Authors

References