Council of Europe Summary on Regional Authorities
On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 I attended the assembly of Presidents of Regional Authorities at their congressional session that occurs twice a year in order to see the Minister of Interior and Kingdom Relations, Ronald Plasterk, speak on issues in the Netherlands.
Speaking before the Minister were Jean-Pierre Liouville and Artur Torres Pereira. Jean-Pierre Liouville gave an overview of a visit to the Netherlands in May and what they noticed, as well as a brief description of the meetings they had with associations and authorities in the Netherlands. Artur Torres Pereira spoke of issues that are prevalent in the Netherlands, and what must be done in order to address and put an end to the issue. The problems include that the local government needs more legal safeguards for both domestic legislation and at the constitutional level, lack of clarity regarding municipalities and provinces, co-government mechanism, mechanisms of consultation, and inadequate financial resources. The recommendations Artur gave for being more efficient in the Netherlands included self-governing, more autonomy, and more financial resources.
The minister than spoke about three of the most prominent issues: local self-government, partnerships for different sectors of the government, and human rights. He began by discussing local self-governments and how two changes need to be made to the current system. These include putting distance between the community and eldermen, and decentralizing core aspects of welfare states. He discussed the repercussions and how these are the right moves in order to keep certain areas separate, but not too distanced. The second issue he discussed was partnership with different types and sectors of government. He emphasized how high levels of government do not mean good command and it is necessary to have money from the national level go to the municipality level in order to avoid raising taxes. The third issue he discussed was human rights. He emphasized that local governments and human rights cannot be treated separately since democracy and constitutionals are tied together. Additionally, the two main aspects of human rights are privacy and discrimination and it is necessary to develop a national action plan so that no one can ignore these basic human rights. These recommendations have been made with complete governmental support.
It was interesting to view this congressional hearing since it is so different than that of the United States. Many of the actions, comments, and questions by the audience would never occur—and if they did, the person would be escorted out. I noticed that only a handful of the audience was really paying attention to the Minister, the rest seemed to be talking, socializing, on their computer, and one lady was even playing solitaire. In America, blatantly carrying on your own conversation would be looked down upon to the point where the person partaking would stop. Additionally, it was interesting to see the people who turned up. I found myself wondering how exactly the actions of the Netherlands affected other countries, specifically Russia who seemed to ask multiple questions.