Strong Local Self-Government as a Basis of Resilient Democratic Societies?
Experience from New EU Member States and Ukraine
Local self-governance is a part of the legal genome of Europe, evidenced by the European Charter of Local Self-Government, worldwide recognized as the legal benchmark for the rights and obligations of local self-governments. Local self-governments are also the engines of democracy. The local level, where citizen involvement in discussions on issues affecting their lives occurs naturally, and where political leadership is subject to informal but highly effective control by their local peers-citizens, creates the groundwork for daily exercises in democracy, forming compromise on the bases of mutual respect. It is not by coincidence that the Nazi Germany, Communist Central Europe, and the Soviet Union, were eager to weaken and ultimately remove local self-governance. Conversely, the architects of the German Basic Law, defining the constitutional basis of post-war Western Germany, were keen to enshrine the rights of local self-governments to ensure that totalitarianism would never again prevail in Germany.
Throughout Central Europe, bottom-up movements driving the transition from societal upheaval after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the authoritarian regimes in Central Europe were keen on re-establishing local governments. Despite decades of oppression, the recovered local self-governments quickly transformed into vibrant and inclusive democracies, forming strong bulwarks against totalitarian tendencies. Recent research also suggests that strong, fiscally autonomous local governments are not only arenas for healthy, inclusive, and sustainable democracy but also crucial for fostering the best local business climate, thereby catalysing economic growth and further contributing to a country's societal stability.
The roundtable aims to discuss the role of local self-governments as important pillars of strong democracies, drawing insights from the Ukrainian, Romanian, and Polish experiences. The Ukrainian experience may be particularly useful, as decentralization and self-organization were (and are) claimed to be key elements in Ukraine's impressive resilience during the full-scale Russian invasion. The roundtable seeks to understand which elements from the experiences of Central Europe and Ukraine can be used as a blueprint for the future development of other countries toward sustainable democracies.
Panelists:
Prof. Dr. Georg Milbradt, Special Representative of the German Federal Government for Administrative Modernisation in Ukraine
Dr. Benedikt Herrmann, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission
Taras Byk, Expert on local self-governments at the Institute of Political Education
Prof. Dr. Clara Volintiru, Bucharest University of Economic Studies/Director of the Black Sea Trust of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
Dr. hab. Kazimierz Bandarzewski, Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Moderator: Prof. Dr. Burkhard Breig, Ostfalia – University of Applied Sciences
Um Anmeldung wird gebeten bis zum 9. November.