BUCHAREST, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Political actors must get closer to their citizens in order to relaunch the European Union (EU), and the best way to do that is to involve local communities, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, president of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), said here on Friday.
The CoR president made the remark at a press conference held at the conclusion of the two-day 8th European Summit of Regions and Cities.
During the summit, regional and local elected representatives discussed and adopted the Bucharest Declaration, entitled "Building the EU from the ground up with our regions and cities."
According to the document, the signatories are "convinced that the European Union needs its regions and cities as much as they need the European Union." The declaration is their "contribution to the preparation of the Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 to be outlined by the EU leaders in Sibiu" in central Romania during their scheduled May 9 summit.
The Bucharest Declaration identifies ten measures aimed at strengthening the EU's democratic foundation and anchoring the EU's action locally to build a better future for European citizens.
"Europe is being transformed with unprecedented speed by globalization, by the digital revolution, climate and demographic change. If we do not want European integration to become a reversible process, these transformations, which crystalize social, economic and territorial inequalities, have to be accompanied, shaped and regulated through a concentrated effort at all levels of government, in particular when one third of all public expenditure and more than half of public investment is carried out at the sub-national level," the document says.
It also emphasizes that "it is vital to raise awareness amongst EU citizens, especially young people, about the European dimension of their identity and citizenship, in particular through education, culture and youth empowerment policies, in order to increase their feeling of belonging to the European project."
In his address, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis conceded that European citizens sometimes perceive the EU as being too bureaucratic and too slow to respond to the multiple current challenges, while the European leadership is often seen as an abstract and distant structure, with leaders whom citizens tend not to know.
The Bucharest summit focused on the contribution and role of local and regional authorities in ensuring solidarity in the EU, strengthening European democracy and encouraging dialogue with citizens, especially in view of this May's European Parliament elections.
