Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai EGTC & MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE CONFERENCE GÖDÖLLŐ, MARCH 22 ND STEF VANDE MEULEBROUCKE GENERAL MANAGER

Introduction 1.The Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai in brief 2.Multilevel governance in practice 3.Proposals for the revision of the EGTC regulation

1 The Eurometropolis Lille- Kortrijk-Tournai in brief

4 Texte français Tekst Nederlands

5 Our mission : Objectives Cross border forum Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai: First EGTC in Europe (January 2008)

EGTC= “cooperative groupings invested with legal personality” Potential members : member states /regional authorities / local authorities / bodies governed by public law / associations of the above The EGTC European Regulation 1082/2006 adopted on July 5th 2006 Signed by 14 partners (4 French, 10 Belgian) Mission of the EGTC: “to promote and support an efficient and consistent cross- border cooperation within its territory” Respect of a “double-parity” principle Respect of bilinguism (FR/NL) Convention of Cooperation for Eurometropolis (January 2007) Purpose and missions Reference territory, registered office location (-> applicable law) organs : Assembly, Board, Chairmanship Advisory bodies: Conference of the Mayors Funding membership/withdrawal/Dissolution Statutes of the EGTC (approved on 28/01/2008) Our legal basis : 3 elements

7 Political organs Bureau (32 members, meets 4 times a year) Assembly (84 members, meets twice a year) Presidence (4 members, rotating) Operational organs Operational services Six Thematic Working Groups Conference of Mayors (147 members) Eurometropolis Forum (60 members) Civil society appeals to feeds the debate propose coordinate consultativedecision-making Appeals to Contributes to Implementation of decisions Governance

8 4 main objectives 1.To realise cross-border consistency of the cross-border region 2.To ensure consultation, dialogue and political debate between the partners of the Eurometropolis 3.To enable, set up and realise projects 4. To facilitate the daily life of the inhabitants

2 Multilevel governance in practice

10 FRENCH SIDEBELGIAN SIDE State level StateFederal state Regional level Région Nord-Pas de CalaisFlemish Region/Flemish Community Walloon Region French Community Provincial level Département du NordProvince of West-Flanders Province of Hainaut Intermunicipal associations Lille Métropole Communauté UrbaineIntermunicipality Leiedal Intermunicipality wvi Intermunicipality IDETA Intermunicipality IEG 14 partners

11 Proximity Europe : multi-level governance 1. European level 2. State level 3. Regional level 4. Provincial level 5. Intermunicipal organisations TopdownTopdown TopdownTopdown Bottom upBottom up Bottom upBottom up 6. Conference of mayors 7. Forum of civil society

3 Proposals for the revision of the EGTC regulation

13 1. Staff employment Current situation - EGTC regulation: staff employment = conditioned by the law of the registered office of the GECT - Case “Eurometropolis”: French law doesn’t allow for employment of staff under private law contracts of unlimited duration -=> Problem: national law turns out to be inappropriate in a cross- border context - Under Belgian presidency of the Eurometropolis: employment of Belgian employees under private law contracts has been made possible - Recruitment of French employees under private law contracts is only possible for limited duration, private law contracts of unlimited duration remain impossible

14 1. Staff employment Possible solutions - More flexibility: allow EGTCs to opt for the application of the law of the place where the staff is carrying out its activities - Explore the possibility to create an employment status that transcends national regulations

15 2. Partnership - Private bodies (such as not-for-profit associations) are often important players in cross-border cooperation -The EGTC regulation excludes participation of private members as such (unless they can be considered as “bodies governed by public law”) - The Eurometropolis established a platform (Forum) – which doesn’t form part of the EGTC structure - in order to create a direct link with the civil society - For new EGTCs to be created in the future, it might be interesting to allow for more flexibility with regard to the participation of EGTCs in the future

16 3. EGTCs in a broader perspective... -The EGTC regulation explicitly mentions the important role of EGTC’s in European territorial cooperation - BUT: in other policy areas & European programmes too, EGTCs should be recognised as a valuable tool to contribute to European objectives - Example: Interreg funds recognise EGTCs as eligible project partners, without the need for additional partners, but not all EU calls do so -Possible solutions: - explicitly specify this in EGTC regulation - beyond the EGTC regulation: make the EGTC broadly known as a tool to realise EU objectives