Colloquium organised by the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Authorities on “The Role of Local and Regional Authorities in Social Dialogue”

                                                                   Riga, 16 September 2016

Speech by Marc Cools, rapporteur for local democracy in Latvia and president of the Belgian delegation to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Prime Minister,
Minister,
Mr President,
Dear colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen, in your various official capacities,

I have the pleasure to represent here today the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. The Congress is one of the two political assemblies of the Council of Europe. The other is the Parliamentary Assembly. The Congress comprises the local and regional elected representatives of the 47 countries of Europe. That is all European countries save Belarus. So not only the European Union, but also the Russian Federation, Turkey and Iceland, for instance. The Council of Europe and the Congress represent 800 million Europeans in total.
The three priorities of the Council of Europe are the rule of law, human rights and democracy. Specifically, the Congress is responsible for monitoring local democracy in the member states of the Council of Europe. I am honoured to have been made rapporteur for local democracy in Latvia. Together with my co-rapporteur I will have the pleasure of seeing you again in your country in September next year to meet your authorities, especially the representatives of your Association of Local and Regional Authorities. This local and regional democracy monitoring visit will not take place until a year’s time because it is the tradition to wait until after the electoral process has been completed in a country in order not to interfere with that process.
I am looking forward to the various presentations this afternoon, which will form my introduction to the state of local democracy in Latvia.
In 1985 the Congress adopted the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which Latvia ratified in 1996. This is a binding legal instrument and a benchmark treaty for the protection of the rights of local and regional communities, such as the right to enjoy self-government, to elect their own local bodies, to have their own administrative structures and have access to adequate financial resources.
I am a passionate advocate of local self-government. The local level is where citizen participation functions best. The application of the principle of subsidiarity, by which the level of power best able to assume a competence exercises it, often the local level, strengthens the efficiency of public action.
Another reason why local autonomy is essential is that it allows direct contact between elected representatives and citizens. Democracy is not a vertical of power. This is always accompanied by a technocracy that forms a partition between the elected representative and the citizen. Democracy is about sharing power. Local and regional self-government leads to political majorities that are not identical at all levels of power and as such it guarantees the proper functioning of democracy.
Democracy is only alive when citizens interest themselves in public affairs. We must tackle the excessive indifference of our fellow citizens to politics and encourage them to show an interest in public management. It is at the local level that this aim is most easy to achieve.
Public management is a triangle. Citizens form the first side of the triangle, their elected representatives the second and the civil servants who implement the policies set by the elected representatives in response to the needs and wants of citizens constitute the third side. These three actors in the management of the community each have a specific role and must act in the public interest.
What we are experiencing today is more than an economic, social and financial crisis. It is a change to society. In such a context innovation and openness to change are essential.
Active citizens combined with good governance are the best recipe for enabling this innovation and openness to change. Good governance is also about ensuring we do not become trapped in the dictatorship of everyday life – current affairs – when managing a community. One must always act with a long-term perspective in mind and take account of tomorrow. Everyone has to be involved in building the future, not least the social partners, who represent employees and employers. Here, we come back to the theme of this colloquium, which is social dialogue.
Dialogue is clearly the operative word in social dialogue. Dialogue – communication – is essential in any human group. Tense relations between people are often due to the absence of communication and mutual understanding. That is true in our private relationships. A successful marriage is not possible without real dialogue between the two spouses. That also goes for a company, whatever its size. There must be positive and constructive dialogue between employers and employees. Both must feel committed and fully behind a shared project. That is also true in an authority. Whether that is a state, a region, a city or a municipality.
There must be a dialogue between politicians and representatives of the social partners. As there must also be between politicians, NGOs and citizens.
For the International Labour Organization: “social dialogue includes all types of negotiation, consultation or simply exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers and workers, on issues of common interest relating to economic and social policy”.
This dialogue necessarily takes on different forms depending on the territorial level.
At European Union level, the results seem to be mixed. Social dialogue has led to three framework agreements that have been converted into an EU directive: the agreement on parental leave in 1996, on part-time work in 1997 and on fixed duration contracts in 1999. At EU level, first and foremost the social partners have a lobbying role.
The intensity of social dialogue is very different across Europe, depending on the country. This dialogue is institutionalised in some countries. In others it is very limited. One also observes a deterioration in social relations in several European countries, including my own country Belgium. Dialogue is most strongly established in Germany and the Nordic countries. This has helped reduce the impacts of the economic crisis in these countries. 
When social dialogue manages to take root at the local and regional level it contributes to the redevelopment of local participative democracy and enables a better response to the crisis by creating specific employment policies tailored to the resources and wealth of each region.
Examples of local or regional social dialogue including local and regional authorities:
-	Germany: 
		
-	The Perspektive 50plus programme is a partnership between the ministry of labour and the states that has permitted a financing fund to be set up to reduce the number of early retirements. 

-	In the state of Brandenburg territorial social dialogue was initiated in 2011 to deal with the reduction in the number of collective agreements leading to a fall in the incomes of salaried employees in the state and the use of immigrants from the eastern part of Europe (predominantly in the metallurgical, chemical, hotel, construction and retail industries). Employee and employer representatives as well as the local authorities worked together to rebuild a work environment that was more beneficial to local workers (with due consideration for work-life balance, better tailored to different ages, better training opportunities and higher wages).

-	Similar initiatives have been launched in Berlin and other states to reopen social dialogue at local level and promote interaction between the main social partners.

-	Denmark: Local and regional authorities have long been major actors in social dialogue in the country, with active involvement in training for jobseekers and subsidising employment. Although some adjustments have been made to the Danish “flexicurity’ model (highly flexible employment, high jobseeker’s allowance) since the 2008 crisis (reduction in jobseeker’s allowance), the 2014 reform enabled the maintenance of the growing role of local and regional authorities in territory-based social dialogue. 

-	Austria: The “Territorial Employment Pacts” that have been in place in Austria since 1996 have certain similarities with the “contract-based regional partnerships” financed by European funds with the aim of improving the local employment situation. The nine states of Austria have been developing this type of pact since 1998, including the employer federations and the unions, and they have had positive, long-lasting effects.

-	Italy: An agreement (ContrattoCampania) was signed between the Campania region, the general confederation of industry and the main unions in 2011 to create an environment more favourable to local investment (including the reduction of local tax, the development of apprenticeships, the simplification of administrative procedures).

-	Czech Republic: Inspired by the Austrian experience, an employment pact was established in the Moravian-Silesian region between that region, the Union for the Development of the Moravian-Silesian Region (including the public administration) and the regional chamber of commerce.

-	Spain: In 2008 the port of Avilés (Asturias), a town with a declining industrial base, launched the “Avilés local pact for progress” aimed at developing the local economy by bringing together employee and employer representatives. The various projects (including plans to clean up pollution, redefine the urban development plans and establish a cultural centre) that came out of the development strategy were partly funded by the EU and the Spanish government. 

-	Belgium:

-	Citydev, the Brussels Regional Development Company, has a Joint Board of Directors. The Brussels-Capital Region and the municipalities designate half of the administrators and the social partners designate the other half. This public company is tasked with setting up business and industrial centres and zones, redeveloping old industrial sites so that they are able to host economic activities or housing.

-	The local job centre of the municipality of Uccle, where I am the vice-mayor, has just published a study analysing the characteristics of the active population and employment in the municipality. The supervisory committee for this study conducted by universities incorporates representatives of the Brussels-Capital Region (Uccle, which has 82,000 inhabitants, is one of the 19 municipalities that make up the Brussels-Capital Region), the municipality and social partners.

I could give many other examples, such as the cities that participate in the European Union’s Urbact programme, the goal of which is to support cooperation between European cities to facilitate their economic, social and environmental development.
As a major concern of the Council of Europe, social dialogue has led to the drawing up of the European Social Charter, which guarantees fundamental social and economic rights. It has been ratified by 43 of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. It refers to civil and political rights in the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Social Charter puts the stress on protecting vulnerable people, such as older people, children, disabled people and migrants. Article 5 guarantees the right of workers to form a union and article 6 establishes the right of collective negotiation.
This social charter is the equivalent of a European social constitution. Latvia signed the charter in 2007 but only ratified part of it in 2013 and it has not ratified four of the 31 articles. In particular, it has not ratified the stipulation that recognises “the right of workers to a remuneration such as will give them and their families a decent standard of living”. It is astonishing that a democratic country like Latvia has not ratified such a stipulation.
To increase the efficiency and speed at which the European Committee of Social Rights is able to conduct monitoring, in 1995 the Council of Europe adopted an additional protocol to the Charter providing for a system of collective claims. Fifteen European countries have ratified this protocol, but Latvia is not one of them.
Social dialogue is a tool to strengthen social cohesion. Local authorities have an important role to play in this area. This has led the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, on several occasions, to look at what can be done at the local level with regard to social cohesion and what indicators can be used. In particular, in 2007 the Congress adopted a resolution calling the local and regional authorities of all member states of the Council of Europe to develop social cohesion indicators in association with all actors. This can only help achieve a pertinent analysis of the results of actions already taken and actions yet to be taken.
As local elected representatives, we must never forget that we are also employers. Sometimes major ones. One of my municipal responsibilities is the personnel management of around 800 members of municipal staff. In my management I have always prioritised dialogue with municipal officials and the unions. This dialogue concerns such things as the status of officials, their training, the employee handbook and the steps that can be taken to improve the safety and layout of the workplace. An example of an ongoing dialogue with my municipal employees and their representatives is the one about parking. Paid parking is to be introduced over a large part of the municipal territory. Enterprises will be able to buy parking season tickets for a limited number of their employees. A working group has been set up with the representatives of the three unions to reach agreement on how much the worker will have to pay for this season ticket and how much will be covered by the municipality. We also discuss with the unions the priority criteria to establish which members of staff are able to benefit from this.
There are various definitions of social dialogue. The most common one is what I have just touched on: the dialogue between and with the social partners. The reference to social dialogue also sometimes includes the idea of citizen participation or citizen dialogue. As a local elected representative going back more than 30 years, I have a certain amount of experience of this type of dialogue.
Citizen participation is not easy to get going and it is not a process without danger. People sometimes egotistically oppose any project ‘in their backyard’. They do not allow anything any more. A bus service, a school, a crèche… fine, but not in my street; a GSM antenna, a hospital, social housing… fine, but not in my neighbourhood; new developments… fine, but not next door to me; businesses, shops, jobs… fine, but not here.
Fortunately, this type of behaviour is not widespread. However, it does illustrate a loss of a sense of general interest among some of our fellow citizens. Without mentioning the disinformation which is sometimes spread about some projects. The political power must in this case show bravery and act in the general interest. It must pursue its citizen participation initiatives and not abandon them. The remarks made about one matter are not necessarily the same as are made about another matter. And when it goes well citizen participation contributes greatly to the success of a project. There are numerous examples.
Democracy requires responsible citizens who are interested in public affairs and are encouraged in their interest by participative processes. These processes must not oppose representative democracy, but complement it. They must not breed mistrust toward elected representatives or hamper their work but rather help citizens, including the social partners who often have more useful expertise, to understand it and influence it better.
To conclude, I would like to tell you that I believe in political engagement. It is the only way to change things. It must be guided by the pursuit of the general interest and its goal must be to respond to the aspirations of our fellow citizens. Citizen participation and social dialogue are useful for identifying these aspirations and involving everyone in realising them. It is often at the local level that this participation or dialogue is most easily put into practice. And it is at the local level that elected representatives see the results of their political action most clearly. 

In his “Democracy in America”, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “A nation may establish a system of free government, but without municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty”. Our ambition at the Council of Europe in campaigning for genuine local self-government and a genuine social and citizen dialogue throughout Europe is that this spirit of liberty can blow across our whole continent.

Thank you for your time.