The international forum of regional assemblies, in Milan

Regional assemblies are the front line of the institutions called to translate democratic needs into decisions that help people.

Today, when States surrender sovereignty to the supranational government, does it still make sense to speak about grassroots democracy, about territorial interests that should be represented and defended, or about social control of political decisions?

This will be one of the central themes at the World Forum of Regional and Sub-national Legislative Assemblies, which is taking place on 23 and 24 October, in Palazzo Pirelli, the seat of the Regional Council, and which will end with approval of the “Manifesto of Regional Legislative and Sub-national Assemblies for true global democracy”.

The initiative is being organised by CALRE, the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies, who will be meeting, in Milan, on the same days.

CALRE, which was founded on 7 October 1997 in Oviedo (Spain), is the Conference of Presidents of the European Regional Assemblies with legislative powers. It is made up of a total of 74 regions that are part of 8 countries. Together, these regions represent 200 million inhabitants. More specifically, CALRE includes the parliaments of autonomous Spanish communities; Italian regional councils; the assemblies of the Belgian regions and communities; the parliaments of the Austrian and German Länder; the autonomous parliament of Åland (Finland); the regional assemblies of the Azores and Madera (Portugal); and those of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (United Kingdom).

However different their powers may be, all of these assemblies have two features in common: they are part of the European Union, and they have legislative powers.

These features give CALRE a kind of crucial homogeneity in defining similar objectives when defending its territories. As they have legislative powers, these regions have, among other things, also the job of introducing European rules into their own legislation and of informing Brussels of any requests and priorities of the respective communities.

VareseNews will be following the event, with a liveblog, on which a report of the work will appear. In the articles dealing with the topic, the outcome of the work linked to the themes of representativeness and regional autonomies will be reported.