Conference of European Regions with Legislative Power | |
---|---|
Headquarters | Brussels |
Type | Intergovernmental organisation |
Membership | 73 participating regions from 8 sovereign states |
Leaders | |
• President of CALRE | José Manuel Rodrigues |
Establishment | |
• CALRE | 7 October 1997 |
• RLEG | 2000 |
The Conference of European Regions with Legislative Power (RLEG) is a political network and joint initiative of leading regions in Europe with legislative power, their own system of government, parliament and head of government. It primarily consists of representatives of regional governments from European Union (EU) member states. The countries of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are members of the conference, and although located in Europe, they are no longer part of the European Union. It is not a formal EU institution, and only 73 regions of 8 member states participate.
The Conference of European Regions with Legislative Power advocates for a system of multilevel governance across the European Union (EU) by advocating for co-responsibility in the integration process. The body suggests that this would ensure the "precise application of the decentralised dimension of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality". [1]
The network aims to bring together the regions across the European Union and continental Europe who hold legislative powers with devolved systems of government which hold legal competencies that have been created as a result of the political and constitutional mechanism of the member states of the European Union in which the region is part of. [2] In the case of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, these three countries are no longer part of the European Union, following a United Kingdom wide decision to leave the European Union in 2016.
At a point, the regions part of the conference accounted for 56% of the total population of the European Union. [3]
On 7 October 1997, the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) was established in Oviedo, Spain, following a period of meetings to enhance European roles for regional legislatures.
Three precedents were the founding principles: [4]
The Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies serves as a conference of the seventy-four presidents of the regional legislative assemblies across continental Europe and European Union member states. The current composition of Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies is made up of representation from the parliaments of the Spanish communities, Italian regional councils, the federated states of Germany and Austria, the Portuguese regions of l'Açores and Madeira, the countries of the United Kingdom with devolved national parliaments – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Ǻland Islands in Finland and Belgium community and regional chambers. [4]
Following the Barcelona Conference held in 2000, six presidents (heads of governments of the membership regions of the conference) were appointed to manage the network which was agreed following the conference held in Barcelona. The six members responsible for managing the network following the Barcelona Conference were Baden-Württemberg, Catalonia, Scotland, Tuscany, Tyrol and Wallonia. Flanders spearheaded discussions around the creation of a political declaration by Bavaria, Catalonia, North-Rhine Westphalia, Salzburg, Scotland, Flanders and Wallonia and defining regions with legislative power as "regions having a legislature as defined in Article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights". [5]
In November 2002 during a meeting of the conference held in Florence, the REGLEG conference called for greater roles and representation of regions with legislative across the European continent in regards to the European Union. Previously, in 2001, the European Council adopted the Laeken Declaration as part of the Convention on the Future of Europe which acknowledged the enhanced roles regions of Europe with legislative power could have in regards to decision making across the European Union. The European Commission formally recognised the White Paper on Governance which highlighted the role regions of Europe with legislative power and own system of government could. As a result, the European Commission formally recognised the "enhanced inclusion of the sub-national authorities can contribute to the quality of European decision- making" and called on each of the member states of the European Union to suggest how relations and decision making processes between the European Union and regions with legislative power can be improved. [3]
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and convention, operates as a unitary parliamentary democracy. A hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Sir Keir Starmer since 2024, serves as the elected head of government.
The European Union created a Committee of the Regions to represent Regions of Europe as the layer of EU government administration directly below the nation-state level. The committee has its headquarters in Brussels.
The legislatures of the United Kingdom are derived from a number of different sources. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body for the United Kingdom and the British overseas territories with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each having their own devolved legislatures. Each of the three major jurisdictions of the United Kingdom has its own laws and legal system.
The Scottish Parliament is the unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyrood. The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), elected for five-year terms under the regionalised form of Additional-member system (MMP): 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality (first-past-the-post) system, while a further 56 are returned as list members from eight additional member regions. Each region elects seven party-list MSPs. Each region elects 15 to 17 MSPs in total. The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 6 May 2021, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality.
The politics of Belgium take place in the framework of a federal, representative democratic, constitutional monarchy. The King of the Belgians is the head of state, and the prime minister of Belgium is the head of government, in a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives. The federation is made up of (language-based) communities and (territorial) regions. Philippe is the seventh and current King of the Belgians, having ascended the throne on 21 July 2013.
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Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area, thus granting them a higher level of autonomy.
The West Lothian question, also known as the English question, is a political issue in the United Kingdom. It concerns the question of whether members of Parliament (MPs) from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales who sit in the House of Commons should be able to vote on matters that affect only England, while neither they nor MPs from England are able to vote on matters that have been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. The term West Lothian question was coined by Enoch Powell MP in 1977 after Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP for the Scottish constituency of West Lothian, raised the matter repeatedly in House of Commons debates on devolution.
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) is the European Union's (EU) assembly of local and regional representatives that provides sub-national authorities with a direct voice within the EU's institutional framework.
The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For local government in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own system of administrative and geographic demarcation. Consequently, there is "no common stratum of administrative unit encompassing the United Kingdom".
The Senedd, officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and Senedd Cymru in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees to certain taxes, and scrutinises the Welsh Government. It is a bilingual institution, with both Welsh and English being the official languages of its business. From its creation in May 1999 until May 2020, the Senedd was officially known as the National Assembly for Wales and was often simply called the Welsh Assembly.
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Scottish devolution is the process of the UK Parliament granting powers to the devolved Scottish Parliament. Prior to the advent of devolution, some had argued for a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom – while others have since advocated for complete independence. The people of Scotland first got the opportunity to vote in a referendum on proposals for devolution in 1979 and, although a majority of those voting voted 'Yes', the referendum legislation also required 40% of the electorate to vote 'Yes' for the plans to be enacted and this was not achieved. A second referendum opportunity in 1997, this time on a strong proposal, resulted in an overwhelming 'Yes' victory, leading to the Scotland Act 1998 being passed and the Scottish Parliament being established in 1999.
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