Council of Europe

“ Balanced development of the territory shall constitute a major objective of any action by regional authorities affecting the territorial organisation of the region.
Regional authorities shall be responsible for protecting and enhancing natural resources and biodiversity and shall ensure the sustainable development of the region, with due regard for local, national, European and international policies in this respect. ”

“ Considering that a pluralist and genuinely democratic society should not only respect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of each person belonging to a national minority, but also create appropriate conditions enabling them to express, preserve and develop this identity ”

“ Regional competences shall be defined by the constitution, the statutes of the region or by national law. Regional authorities shall, within the limits of the law and/or the constitution, have full discretion to exercise their initiative with regard to any matter which is not excluded from their competence nor assigned to any other authority. Regulation or limitations of regional competences shall be based on the constitution and/or law. ”

“ Territorial application 1 Any State or the European Union may, at the time of signature or when depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, specify the territory or territories to which this Convention shall apply.
2 Any Party may, at any later date, by a declaration addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, extend the application of this Convention to any other territory specified in the declaration and for whose international relations it is responsible or on whose behalf it is authorised to give undertakings. ”

“ Article 1 Each Contracting Party undertakes to facilitate and foster transfrontier co-operation between territorial communities or authorities within its jurisdiction and territorial communities or authorities within the jurisdiction of other Contracting Parties. It shall endeavour to promote the conclusion of any agreements and arrangements that may prove necessary for this purpose with due regard to the different constitutional provisions of each Party. ”

“ National or federal authorities’ power of temporary substitution to act in lieu of regional authority organs may be exercised only in exceptional cases and under the procedures provided for by the constitution or by law. This power shall be confined to specific cases where regional authorities have seriously failed to exercise the competences vested in them and shall be utilised in accordance with the principle of proportionality in the light of the interests it is designed to protect. ”

“ The exercise of regional self-government shall contribute to the central government’s economic and social cohesion objectives and to central government activities aimed at achieving comparable living conditions and balanced development throughout the national territory, in a spirit of solidarity between regional authorities. ”

“ The financial systems on which resources available to regional authorities are based shall be of a sufficiently diversified and buoyant nature to enable them to keep pace as far as practically possible with the real evolution of the cost of carrying out their tasks. ”

“ Regional authorities shall have the right of recourse to a judicial remedy in order to secure the free exercise of their powers and respect for the principles of regional self-government enshrined in domestic law. ”

“ The protection of financially weaker regional authorities shall be ensured through financial equalisation procedures or equivalent measures which are designed to correct the effects of the unequal distribution of potential sources of finance and of the financial burden they must support. ”

“ If institutional dialogue is to be representative, local and regional authorities at all levels that have a legitimate interest in the issues being addressed must be invited to take part, regardless of their political make-up. ”

“ Regional assemblies shall be directly elected through free and secret ballot based on universal suffrage, or indirectly elected by and composed of popularly elected representatives of constituent local self-government authorities. ”