COMMON POSITION STATEMENT ON PARTNERSHIP
IN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
IN CENTRAL EUROPEAN EU CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

AGREED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF NG0's
FROM POLAND, CZECH REPUBLIK AND HUNGARY

CSILLEBERC KOZPONT, BUDAPEST, 31.11-1.12.2001

At the very late fall 2001 in Budapest there was organised an international workshop of NGO representatives from three Central European Candidate countries: Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary with the financial and expert support from Regional Environmental Centre for CEE, Szentendre.

Participants of the workshop recognise the challenges of economic and social cohesion policy to be implemented after EU Enlargement also in Central Europe, threats and opportunities of pre-accession activities and necessity of deep and thorough implementation of partnership principle in the process.

Current situation of public participation and building partnership in developing democracies of three CE Candidate countries were discussed and then common position statement of CE NGOs was agreed as one of major outcomes of the workshop. The position statement is to be presented responsible administrative and decision-making bodies on national and also EU level and will be published in regional and inter-regional press as a proposal of possible adjustments on regional development policy, both enlargement related and not.

Common position statement tries to address major deficiencies in pre-accession preparatory process in three CE countries and also allow it self to propose some measurements which can add value to pre-accession process through improvements of partnership and more sustainable approach to regional development.

Message for EU authorities

No official and detailed explanation of partnership is still available for CE administrative bodies together with at least rough guidance for its implementation. In this manner, Aarhus Convention provisions could (and should) be used as a tool for building partnership in regional development support activities and more specifically in regional development planning process at first. Public participation should be considered as an effective tool for enhancement the ability of planning process to respond on local and regional needs to be addressed by economic and social cohesion projects.

European Commission should invest more energy in making pressure on thorough implementation of the partnership and monitoring of progress done by Candidate countries in this field of pre-accession activities. Building partnership in candidate countries should be as a specific task addressed by annual Progress Report issued by European commission where comments of NGO community form each Candidate country on the task are also included. Aarhus convention can be used to precise implementation of the partnership in Accession Countries. In this terms additional support for building NGOs capacities is needed (finance, expertise, training, equipment) in order to enable non-for-profit organisations to play their key role in optimising regional development planning and further implementation process. Especially elaboration of Regional Operational Programs was outlined by participants from all CE countries as crucial process for building NGO capacities and building partnership in CE countries as a whole.

As a support mechanism we propose to establish new EU-NGO Dialogue scheme focused on issues of regional development, pre-accession funds operation and preparation of Candidate countries on Structural funds operation, which should facilitate direct contact between DG Regio and CE non-for-profit organisations. Already existing EU-NGO Dialogue on environmental issues could be used as effective basis for transfer of experiences of facilitating such process. All the measures outlined above should contribute to change of the overall goal of regional development activities from "social and economic development" to "sustainable development of European regions".

Message for CE Candidate countries authorities

Central European governments, national and regional administrative bodies should seriously take in account building regional partnership as a task set out by European Union for Candidate countries. Fast ratification of Aarhus Convention together with proper implementation of its provision could serve as very effective tool in these terms.

Regional and national authorities must have extra capacities for building partnership in its staff, procedures in decision-making and information dissemination. As a pre-condition it is necessary to create the responsible bodies for regional public administration, where division of competence among state and self-governmental bodies is clear and where self-governmental bodies have sufficient legal status, political and financial power devolved by central governments and central administrative bodies. In most of CE countries such situation is still non existent almost 12 years after the revolutionary years 1989-90. This way one of key pillars of democracy is still starving, despite the fact that they are considered as functioning democratic countries.

Partnership on regional level should consist from following components:

• non-for-profit organisations representatives presented in management and monitoring committees, the representatives are elected by and accountable to NGO community
• environmental NGOs and public are within clear and simple framework involved in formulating regional development planning documents (in this term provision of Aarhus convention are to be used as a basis for clear public participation in regional development planning)
• SEA¹ as a tool for environmental optimising of regional development planning documents should be undertaken in all CE countries and should become an integral part and usual of all regional development planning processes,

We, members of non-for-profit organisations community from three Central European countries believe, that building partnership is one of the strands of EU Accession preparatory activities, which is bearing most important signs of deficit. This can have a disastrous effect on the validity of economic policy altogether.

The EU is now committed to adjusting its policies to the horizontal objective of sustainability and EC is helping accession countries in their efforts to set up democratic institutions, which in turn will ensure the participation of all social classes in decision-making and in the solving of economic and social problems.

NGOs of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary decided to use the common position paper by sending it to the most important bodies of EU: DG Regio, DG Environment and its national Desk Officers, CEE governments - mostly to the Ministries of regional development and environment, CEE delegations in Brussels - mainly NGO delegations and country delegations, regional councils, agencies, national EU delegations and of course to all NGOs of EU. The other form of dissemination the common position paper will be its publishing on national and EU magazines (newsletters, CEEB Magazine) and also on internet - websites of CELODIN, websites of participants and other NGOs in CEE and EU level (G 8).

[wersja polska]