Composition
According to the new Charter of the Congress adopted on 2 May 2007 by the Committee of Ministers, the Congress is formed of representatives of local and regional authorities of the member states of the Council of Europe, who are either directly elected or are politically accountable to a directly elected assembly. The membership of each member state’s delegation ensures a balanced geographical distribution of territories, equitable representation of the various types of local and regional authorities and political forces within these authorities of the member states, and equitable representation of women and men. Each member state has the right to the same number of seats in the Congress as in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Apart from representatives (full members), the member states also send the same number of their substitutes (substitute members) to the Congress, who work in the same capacity.
Within the Congress the work is organised in the two Chambers: the Chamber of Local Authorities and the Chamber of Regions. The Congress has three statutory committees which reflect changes made in October 2010: the Monitoring Committee (which deals with monitoring and ensuring the application of the charter and institutional development), the Governance Committee (responsible for affairs falling within the scope of the Congress' statutory mandate such as governance, public finance, cross-border and interregional co-operation and e-democracy as well as co-operation with intergovernmental bodies), and the Current Affairs Committee (responsible for studying the role of local and regional authorities with regard to the major challenges of our society and preparing work on thematic issues such as social cohesion, education, culture and sustainable development ). The Standing Committee acts on behalf of the Congress between its sessions, which are normally held at least once a year. The Bureau of the Congress is responsible for everyday work of the Congress and its continuity. The Congress elects its President from its members for two years (at present it is Herwig van Staa of Austria) and directed by the Secretary General (Andreas Kiefer of Austria, as from 1 April 2010).
Read more about this topic: Congress Of The Council Of Europe
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)