Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Power to the little people
Dick Erixon continues his debate on regionalism on his blog. He emphasises that he is not a centralist, i.e. he actually wants less to the state parliament and more to the “little people”. He wants stronger local governments and despises the idea of political regions. He says: “With strong local sovereignty, the local municipalities will become the centre of the democratic and political exercising of power. …. Thus: start with more power to the individual citizen, then we take the next step to the local democratic arena, the local municipality, for issues of welfare and cooperation and then to the state on principal issues, and the finally the European Union.” He may call it a recipe for decentralisation. I call it wishy-washy.
A prequisite for European regionalism is political representation on the regional level, in between the local municipality and the state. The red thread in the various EU treaties - from Rome via Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice - is the bid for slowly diminishing the state sovereignty in favour of greater regional autonomy. (That’s probably why centralist governments like Sweden, France and the UK are scared stiff of the new EU treaty.) Regions are also the basis for distribution of wealth through EU’s structural funds (NUTS). The idea of a regional political division is also supported by the Council of Europe and the Assembly of European Regions.
The European regionalism constitutes no major problems for the European states which have a de-central or federal modern history. But central states like Sweden, Denmark and France have various degrees of difficulties with the prospect of transferring political powers to the regions. And this is particularly the case in Sweden.
There are 33 local municipalities in Skåne alone, a province of less than one million inhabitants. Each local municipality government is guarding its own political and administrative territory. Often are two neighbouring municipalities run by opposing political majorities (like Malmö and Vellinge) and they are often not even on speaking terms. I fail to see how Mr Erixon’s recipe for decentralisation of power in Sweden will materialise "from down and upwards". It sound more like centralistic wishful thinking than a realistic views on practical politics.
Mr Dixon has a past as a politician in the Centre Party (Centerpartiet). His ideas on regionalism/federalism is confusingly similar to the ideas the present leadership of the party brings forward. Interestingly enough many of the young people in the Centre Party, unlike Mr Erixon, seem to get the hang of what European regionalism is all about. The future is promising.
A prequisite for European regionalism is political representation on the regional level, in between the local municipality and the state. The red thread in the various EU treaties - from Rome via Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice - is the bid for slowly diminishing the state sovereignty in favour of greater regional autonomy. (That’s probably why centralist governments like Sweden, France and the UK are scared stiff of the new EU treaty.) Regions are also the basis for distribution of wealth through EU’s structural funds (NUTS). The idea of a regional political division is also supported by the Council of Europe and the Assembly of European Regions.
The European regionalism constitutes no major problems for the European states which have a de-central or federal modern history. But central states like Sweden, Denmark and France have various degrees of difficulties with the prospect of transferring political powers to the regions. And this is particularly the case in Sweden.
There are 33 local municipalities in Skåne alone, a province of less than one million inhabitants. Each local municipality government is guarding its own political and administrative territory. Often are two neighbouring municipalities run by opposing political majorities (like Malmö and Vellinge) and they are often not even on speaking terms. I fail to see how Mr Erixon’s recipe for decentralisation of power in Sweden will materialise "from down and upwards". It sound more like centralistic wishful thinking than a realistic views on practical politics.
Mr Dixon has a past as a politician in the Centre Party (Centerpartiet). His ideas on regionalism/federalism is confusingly similar to the ideas the present leadership of the party brings forward. Interestingly enough many of the young people in the Centre Party, unlike Mr Erixon, seem to get the hang of what European regionalism is all about. The future is promising.
