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CoR President confident: way forward will be found on Lisbon Treaty after Irish Referendum
18.06.2008, 16:20
Following the Irish Referendum on the Treaty of
Lisbon, the EU must step up its efforts to communicate "with conviction" at
grassroots level, Committee of the Regions President Luc Van den Brande told a
communication forum hosted by the assembly on 17 June. "We have to deal
with the concrete challenges - security, education, inclusion, climate change,
energy, inter-generational solidarity - and we have to ensure that this dialogue
doesn't just take place in the 2 square kilometres of Brussels," he said.
Last Thursday's "no" vote must not prevent the Union from continuing to lead an informed debate at decentralised level and from listening to the concerns of citizens, the President declared.
Addressing a press conference during the forum, President Van den Brande said he was "absolutely sure that there will be an outcome" to overcome the uncertainty caused by the Irish result.
He said it was up to politicians of all levels - European, national, regional and local - to follow the "4-D" approach to communication: democracy, dialogue, debate and decentralisation".
The 3rd CoR inter-institutional communication forum attracted 350 participants, including representatives of local and regional authorities, devolved administrations, the European Commission offices in the Member States, the Permanent Representations to the EU, and specialist and regional media.
Each Member State hosted its own debate within the forum to ensure that the exchanges were as targeted and relevant as possible.
The outcome of the forum will feed into this week's plenary session discussion on the opinion of Claude du Granrut (FR/EPP) on communicating Europe in partnership.
Source: www.cor.eu