Mrs. Enguix explained that as local intermediate administrations, diputaciones in Spain have the responsibility to empower European Democracy and bolster citizens’ participation as, indeed, the latter is the foundation of the former.
To enrich European Democracy, Diputaciones notably lend assistance to the municipalities of their territory by helping them draft strategic plans and participate in project aimed at fostering citizens’ participation.
Amongst others, the Equality, the Transparency, the Citizens’ participation and the European Projects Departments of the Diputación play a pivotal role in assisting municipalities to achieve the aforementioned goals. Furthermore, Citizens’ participation is understood and integrated as a transversal concept throughout all the initiatives of the Diputación.
Sectorial councils also known as citizens’ participation council can be considered the flagship initiatives to incentivise citizens’ participation.
In the municipality of Ontinyent, there are, for instance, 11 sectorial councils which are consulted on all municipal budgets, decrees and projects for which citizen’s participation is deemed essential.
The Diputación subsidises municipalities, through the network of towns protected against gender-based violence to draft and implement compulsory equality plans which are to be conceived transversally in order to be applied to all public policies. To be part of this network, municipalities are required to have their own equality plans, equality agents and equality portfolios: that is why the Diputación encourages and financially assists them in achieving these goals.
These Equality plans go through the examination and scrutiny of Sectorial councils.
With regards to the budget of the Diputación, 900 000 euros are currently dedicated to assisting municipalities in the elaboration or updating of their Equality plans and the next call for proposals should dedicate 1.4 million euros to this same objective.
Financing lines from the Diputación are available to municipalities of up to 20 000 inhabitants in the domains of transparency, good governance and citizens’ participation. Municipal participatory budgets can, for instance, use this funding opportunity.
Financing lines from the Diputación are also available to municipalities to help draft Urban Agenda and European projects. The Diputación can, for instance, subsidise municipalities so they can afford the hiring of consultants to assist them in the drafting of the project proposal. 680 000 euros are thus available to municipalities and 260 000 for Mancomunidades (groupings of municipalities).
These funds are an expression of support to those small and medium sized municipalities which do not necessarily have the administrative capacity to draft project proposals and thus compete for EU funds
Furthermore, 11 Mancomunidades and179 municipalities applied to receive funding to elaborate Urban Agendas for which a total of 960 000 euros was made available by the Diputación.
The aim of these funding opportunities is to foster the strategic territorial planning through the financing of local action plans of the Urban Agenda aligned with the goals, methodology and transversal integral approach of the Spanish Urban Agenda as well as with the Sustainable Development Objectives.
The existence of Urban Agenda in a given municipality increases its chances of being granted EU funding. In the recently published decree (official journal) regulating the integral action plans, municipalities with Urban Agendas will be given priority access to FEDER funds.
In the Valencia municipality of Ontinyent, 200 000 euros are dedicated to participatory budgets. Each year, the inhabitants can suggest project proposals on website www.ontinyentparticipa.es.
There is no limit to the number of proposals and they are not to be chosen from a pool of proposals pre-selected by the municipality.
After the first proposal phase, a second phase of technical filtering is operated by the municipal staff from the relevant departments along with the mayor mainly to assess the feasibility of the proposal.
The third phase is the examination of the proposals by the sectorial councils. Each sectorial council chooses a proposal and usually records a video detailing and defending the proposal.
For the fourth and final phase, inhabitants are called on to vote and choose the 5 selected proposals. The projects cannot require the publication of calls for tenders and their budget cannot go over 15 000 euros (not including VAT) for current expenditures projects to ensure that the project can be implemented within the year following the selection and 40 000 euros for investment projects. After a year, a progress report is made available to the citizens.
Since 2014, over 4 millions euros have been invested in 32 projects with over 37 000 voters and 100% of the chosen projects implemented.
Moderation:
The moderator highlighted:
the total freedom of the citizens with regards to the proposal process of the municipality of Ontinyent as opposed to processes in which citizens can only choose from a pool of pre-selected project proposals.
The concept of transversality applied to citizens’ participation which implies the implementation of the concept across the board and not only in particular policy areas.
Such initiatives go to show that Local Intermediate Governments can be pioneering innovative citizens’ participation methods from which other levels of government can draw inspiration.
Lending financial assistance to municipalities to assist them in the drafting of EU-funded project proposal and the elaboration of their own Urban Agenda contributes to achieving equality of opportunities when it comes to getting access to EU funds as it is known that many small and medium-sized towns are de facto excluded from vying for them.
Mr. Menesini explained Europe is also made up of smaller marginalised communities found outside of the great metropolitan areas and of medium-sized towns.
It is important for the voice and benefits of Europe to be felt in these communities and for the voice of these communities, which are often the one somewhat resisting the European Union, to be heard in Europe, that is to say, in Brussels.
Municipalities are the governments which citizens turn to the most on a daily basis as they are the ones ensuring the basic services.
That is why any strategy to bring Europe to the territories must rely on them.
Italy is now reaffirming the key administrative role of provinces and municipalities to strengthen the (cohesion of) local communities. In recent years, the Province of Lucca has invested 2.5 million euros not for projects of the Province itself but rather for local communities and municipalities to generate links and partnerships which brings Europe to the local populations.
Up until Covid, European policies were mostly dedicated to the development of urban areas and especially of metropolitan areas, which has increased territorial inequalities with regards to the quality of life. The Covid crisis can be considered a watershed moment which has shed light on these inequalities. On the other, the digital and AI revolutions offer unprecedented opportunities to improve the quality of life in rural and small communities (demographic crisis, job opportunities).
There has to be a political discussion on what “quality of life ‘ actually mean. This discussion cannot be a top-down one coming down from Brussels to the local level but, on the opposite, should be based on grassroots reflections.
The main instrument to involve the local level is the Cohesion Policy whose functioning, via the strong involvement and participation local communities, is currently called into question. Current debates suggest that it could be nationalised.
For instance, the resilience plans in Spain had a more central/national approach in Spain than in Italy.
The protagonism of local communities is what will ensure a strong political Europe. The tendency to reinforce the national level will not lead to a stronger political Europe but reinforcing local communities will.
The level of participation in local elections is the highest of all elections, at least in Italy, and Local Intermediate Authorities are instrumental in bringing Europe to the territories given that they have the trust of the citizens, as recent barometers show, thus making them a strong echelon of democracy. That is why any strategy aimed at strengthening European democracy must go through them and why Partenalia and CEPLI are crucial partners in the discussions on the future of the Cohesion Policy.
Mr. Menesini highlighted other services provided by the provinces to small and medium-sized municipalities such as facilitating the access to EU funds, administrative simplification (notably for the publication of call for tenders), digitalisation of services and proving assistance in developing a long-term vision for the development of the territory.
Finally, Mr. Menesini reminded the audience of the significance of the subsidiarity principle as a pillar of the European Union. Centralisation processes aimed at concentrating political initiatives at the national level infringes on the subsidiarity principle and tend to move public services and the decisions regarding these services away from the citizens.
A lot work remains to be done for provinces to empower European democracy.
The moderator stresses both the humility contained in this last message from Mr. Menesini as much remain to be done and the faith in the role of Local Intermediate Authorities as generators of opportunities for European citizens.
Provinces indeed act as a pressure valve on which town halls can rely to ensure that citizens’ request are met efficiently.
The current zeitgeist is that of a distrust, or at least of a suspicion or wariness, of democratic institutions but local and local intermediate governments nonetheless manage to retain the trust of the citizens as shown by the participation rate in local elections.
A video presentation from the Diputación de León is played. The video insists on the seminal role of the Kingdom of León as the cradle of European Democracy as it established the first courts in 1188 as recognised by the UNESCO. Even before then, in 1017, the declaration of the Fuero de León, a legal code, established the first citizens’ rights.
Intervention of Vicepresident Cordula Drautz from Region Hannover, responsible for Finance, Buildings and Administrative Reform, Europe and Funding Management
Mrs. Cordula Drautz focused her intervention three key questions related to Integrated Territorial Investments as participatory funding instruments in EU structural funds.
Question 1:What do structural funds have to do with participatory elements ?
For as long as the EU cohesion policy has existed, the EU has been concerned with the question of how best to communicate its advantages and positive impact on the immediate living conditions of EU citizens. An important pillar for this are participation instruments in the structural funds. Funding makes Europe Visible on the ground.
The best-known funding line that has followed this approach since the 1990s is the LEADER program (Links between initiatives of rural economic development) within the framework of the EAFRD Structural Funds.
It started in 1991 as a community initiative at the suggestion of France and was intended to strengthen rural areas in their independent development. Its great success has led to it now being part of the mainstream funding in the EAFRD. More than 2,700 local action groups across the EU, made up of all parts of local civil society and representatives of the rural municipalities involved, have developed a development strategy in this funding period that covers several municipalities. They advise on and decide on specific funding projects at the suggestion of a regional management funded by EAFRD funds, which are intended to put the strategy into practice. The territorial, holistic, multi-sectoral bottom-up approach is the recipe for success that culminates in the often-quoted statement “Once a LEADER program, always a LEADER program”.
However, the ERDF/ESF structural funds also contain participatory funding instruments that are unfortunately not used very often. These are the integrated territorial investments (ITI).
Question 2: How do the ITIs differ from the LEADER programme?
The LEADER programme has its origins in rural structural support and is in EU jargon a CLLD, a Community led local development .
The origins of Integrated Territorial Investments are in the ERDF fund and thus in regional development. The EU Commission did not offer this option for the first time in this funding period, but they were part of the proposals for cohesion policy for the 2014-2020 funding period adopted in October 2011. In ITI projects financial resources from several priority axes of one or more operational programmes can be bundled into multidimensional and cross-sectoral interventions. However, the possibility of tracking the allocation of funds for the various investment priorities is still maintained.
Such an instrument named “Future fit regions” was used for the first time in the current funding period in the operational programme of Lower Saxony Region in Germany. In practice, this means that not only ERDF funds but also ESF+ funds can be used for projects in the future region. The aim was to provide impetus for regional development across district borders, including the large independent cities. €96 million from the ERDF/ESF programme is available for this purpose until 2027.
In a three-stage application process, at least two counties/provinces had to choose from a total of six key areas of action, namely
- Regional innovation capacity (regional technology transfer networks, support for the start-up climate, innovative learning and work locations, services and applications for digital skills and processes)
- Low-carbon society and circular economy (intelligent energy distribution systems, circular economy and resource efficiency)
- Biological diversity and functioning natural areas (Biological diversity and green infrastructures)
- Change in the workplace, equal opportunities and social participation
(Work-life balance, learning and working in the digital world, basic digital skills and digital participation, promoting active participation in the labour market, social life and social integration)
- Health care and nursing (Improved access to health and care systems, digital services and applications, mobile solutions)
- Culture and Leisure (development and promotion of cultural heritage, cultural
services, natural heritage, ecotourism and tourism resources and services)
They have to choose two goals and then develop a regional development concept involving civil society and economic and social partners. 14 “future fit regions” made it through the application process in Lower Saxony, including the Hannover-Hildesheim future fit region. We have now our own funding budget of €2.8 million for projects in the field of regional innovation and €2 million in the field of culture and leisure, which, due to the leverage effect, triggers a total of more than €12 million in investments, because the EU funding rate in more developed regions is 40%.
Question 3: What exactly is the role of the economic and social partners and the representatives of civil society in the future region?
The economic and social partners and the representatives of civil society play a very important role not only in drawing up the regional development concept, but also in assessing whether a project is worthy of funding and thus in the governance structures. We have formed two Expert committees in which representatives of the economic and social partners and civil society come together to represent their respective field of action (regional innovation capacity or culture and leisure). The experts are trade unions, chambers of commerce and industry or chambers of crafts, universities, associations such as junior business associations or business associations, as well as cultural associations or tourism companies. They bring their expertise with them and use a previously jointly defined scoring model to assess whether a project produces effective, sustainable added value for the development of the future region. On the basis of your recommendation, the overarching decision-making body, the steering group, decides whether a project is worthy of funding. This steering group includes three representatives from each Expert committee.
Practice has shown that representatives of the economic and social partners and civil society can not only assess the practical value of a project, but can also give project promoters practical advice on project design.
The moderator insisted on the utmost importance of involving civil society on the decisions related to EU-funded investments. Visible economic returns at the local level are key to engaging citizens in the EU’s democratic processes as they are the main manifestations of the benefits of belonging to this political entity.
As Mrs. Drautz emphasized the difficulty in finding coming ground to choose what to invest in within the Region of Lower Saxony, the moderator pointed out that one of the raison d’être of the Kreiss as subregional administrative units is indeed to facilitate that choice and identify relevant and useful investments thanks to their extensive knowledge of their respective territories. Indeed, the various Kreis break down the big region into more human-scale, as it were, administrative units.
Finally the moderator bounced back on the crucial point made by Mrs. Drautz that listening to the citizens is one thing but that implicating them in the final decision is what ultimately matters if we want them to feel a part of the projects and by way of consequence of the democratic processes of the European Union. Indeed, if the final decisions regarding the investments does not match their aspirations then the listening part can be perceived to be “all for naught”.
Mr. Nofuentes insisted on the concept of “Euromunicipalism”.
Indeed, local and local intermediate governments should have greater representation within EU institutions and play a greater role in the use of EU funds as their voice represents the voice of the citizens. Both Partenalia and CEPLI play a key role in bringing those revendications to the EU.
The participation rate in local elections is much higher than that of European elections and a reflection, based on the analysis of the participation rate at the local level, must be carried out to increase it. Out of all the European institutions, only one is directly elected by the citizens.
The lack of representation of local and local intermediate governments has direct consequences on how European funds are spent. For instance, Blue Economy is understood as the economy related to coastal areas and not as the economy and issues related to the management of the water grid which is a fundamental service provided by Local and local Intermediate governments. The consequence is a lack of European funds dedicated to improving this service although it is an actual necessity of local populations.
That is why the setting of strategic goals at the EU level should also rely on local and local intermediate governments so that they reflect the needs of the citizenry.
Partenalia advocates for citizens’ participation to occur not only at the municipal level
There are encouraging signs as shown by the CLIMAX calls for proposals for which regions will be the exclusive eligible entities and thus beneficiaries. Reflections are ongoing to ensure citizens’ participation as well as the involvement of local and local intermediate governments in the future CLIMAX projects.
In the framework of the sustainable (green) Urban Agendas, the new law on waste management, which will come into effect on January, 1st 2025 and is the transposition of European directive, dictates that all the benefits of the selling of subproducts of waste management (paperboard, glass, plastics) are to be identified and to finance green infrastructures and awareness campaigns based on the choices of citizens.
The strength of this approach is twofold and lies in:
The involvement of citizens in awareness raising initiatives from the start and as direct participants in the economic/investment choices related to the use of these benefits. In addition, Local Intermediate
The involvement of Local Intermediate Governments recognised as key actors just as the regions are.
This implies a significant step toward what Partenalia and the CEPLI are advocating, that is greater protagonism of Local Intermediate Authorities in EU policies.
To bounce back on what Mr. Menesini explained regarding the Resiliency Plan, in all the Member States, even Italy, subnational governments were unfortunately not involved in the preparation of the budget. In Spain, following the adoption of the Lucca declaration in April of this year, a bill is being discussed which would render it compulsory for 15% of European funds to go directly to local and Local Intermediate Governments. These governments should then ensure the participation of citizens both in the identification of their goals and in the elaboration of their budgets related to the use of these funds. Partenalia is thus the at the vanguard of this revendication of ensuring that 15% of EU funds systematically reaching Local Intermediate Governments.
Finally, President Nofuentes congratulates the other speakers as they were able to showcase clear examples of the value of Euromunicipalism and of the key role played by local and local intermediate governments in ensuring the actuality/effectivity of key democratic processes in the form of citizens’ participation. Indeed, the various interventions have shed light on the pivotal role which local and local intermediate governments can play in building a more solid and participatory Europe.
A video presentation from the Diputación de Castellón which manages a Europe Direct Centre is played to the audience. The presentation showcases the recent communication campaign operated by the Castellón Europe Direct Centre which not only took place online but also via onsite outdoors events throughout the municipalities of the province and was aimed at encouraging citizens to vote in the European elections. Both politicians and the technical staff actively participated in these events by exchanging at length with the local citizens.
Intervention from the audience:
The gap between “Europe” as a concept and the citizens is real. Europe is seen through the lens of the funds it provides but the project that they are used for are rarely part of global strategic plans but rather isolated from one another.
Europe is also perceived as the entity imposing norms top-down. Europe is seldom perceived as a “Europe of values” and the efforts of Local Intermediate Governments must be geared towards conveying the fact that citizens must make European values their own.
EU funds dedicated to transmitting European values to the citizens are the less funded ones and they tend not the be the favourites of the entities that apply for EU funds in general. There lies the rub.
President Nofuentes’ answer:
President Nofuentes agrees with the statement.
Furthermore (editor’s note: as pointed out earlier by Mr. Menesini), these values need to be defined.
The well-being of European citizens seems to be the central value.
In addition, what citizens do not know about does not exist, as it were, and what does not exist cannot be appreciated.
There indeed few calls for proposals and a only a small percentage of EU funds dedicated to the communication of these values. More broadly, the communication phase of EU-funded projects only starts at the end when we should reflect on how to communicate from their inception.
Mrs. Enguix’s answer:
Mrs. Enguix highlights the nature of the European directive transposed as the new law on waste management as one that imposes the use of revenues from the selling of subproducts of waste management to finance specific types of projects as explained earlier. That is to say that the directive is related to tax collection.
To comply with the new law and thus with the directive, municipalities are currently voting new and separate taxes into effect as, indeed, citizens will pay for the services. In other words, the implementation is stringent.
If the European directives on gender equality were implemented with such vehemence and vigor, the situation would change more dramatically for the better.
The fight against gender violence and for gender equality are indeed European values so why isn’t there the same impetus to transpose these directives with the same speed and stringency ?
Europe should make itself more visible in that sense.
Therefore, what made this particular European directive be implemented at such a fast pace is the fact that it is directly linked to tax collection.
Intervention from the audience:
Mr. Ramón Díaz (vice-president of the Diputación de Badajoz) stresses the fact that if a problem is not known then, obviously, no solution can be implemented to solve it. Hence, the significance of dialoguing with the citizens.
Agreeing with Mrs. Drautz, out of the all the citizens’ participation initiatives, the LEADER programme has been the best exemple and greatest success of improving our villages and towns using a bottom-up approach. Indeed, citizens’ participation needs to be at the decision-making level and not only consultative.
This year is the 30th anniversary of many of the Local Action Groups. These LAG give clear visibility to the money invested in the territories as they directly generate local employment.
The Diputación de Badajoz dedicates 10% of its overall budget to participatory budgets at the attention of the province’s comarcas (Mancomunidades – intermunicipal entities).
The communication of the benefits of the LEADER programme should be improved on as it has indeed served to concretely increase the quality of life of European citizens.
Mrs. Drautz insists that it is not only the communication that needs to be improved on but also the dialogue with citizens. The Future fit regions initiative in the Hannover Region consists in making use of the possibility within the ITI projects of bundling the multidimensional and cross-sectoral fundings into a global budget not only to bundle money but also to bundle ideas (of the chambers of commerce, trade union, civil society, the youth) and enforce dialogue and debate in order to develop integrated territorial strategies with a long-lasting effect and not focus on isolated projects.
Key areas with issues and development were identified for the whole territory as opposed to only parts of it.
Mr. Menesini recalls the austerity measures taken by the Italian government in 2011. During the announcement of these measures (mainly consisting in a reform of pensions), the minister in charge of presented them crying and ending with “ Europe is requiring it”. This was a disaster communication wise.
He explained that Europeans are made to feel like the decisions coming from Brussels emanate from processes which are completely out of the democratic realm.
This exemple goes to show that communication related to the EU is a sensitive and tricky matter.
Depending in whether a mayor is pro or somewhat anti-Europe, when inaugurating infrastructures financed in part with EU funds, the mayor will choose to mention this fact or not.
Tax collections related to waste management have always existed within European municipalities. What Europe, meaning what we have asked ourselves to do through our elected representatives, has required municipalities to do is to base the taxation levels on the how polluting an entity is.
The Province of Lucca has applied to a call for proposals of the DG REGIO to train journalists on EU-related communication (use of funds, Cohesion Policy). Radio shows will be dedicated to communication of EU initiatives with a positive impact at the local level.
Too often the communication follows the pattern of ‘anything negative is Europe’s fault, anything positive is thanks to me”.
The moderator explains that even the European Commission plays on this image as even its basic presentation offered to visitors is called “ It’s all Europe’s fault”.
We can talk about counter-communication as many political parties play the card of the Brussels as the intrinsic culprit.
Before launching new citizens’ participation initiatives, the European Commission should respect the ones it already initiated and implement the results of the citizens’ consultation on the winter and spring time change which had an impressive participation rate and through which European citizens were able to express their desire to put an end to this time change. The implementation of this reform has yet to be made effective.
The underlying theme of this workshop is that democracy does not equate elections only and that it is crucial for citizens to participate in the democratic life of Europe outside of the election cycles.
Democracy is not only about voting every X years and sitting tight in between.
The involvement of citizens in project linked to structural funds and integrated territorial investments is part and parcel of the quintessentially democratic process of collectively allocating public resources.
This involvement and the participation of citizens more broadly contribute to the sense of living in a functioning democratic system.
