On 17 November the CIVEX commission had its last meeting before the end of the current mandate. Most of the subjects up for debate see the CoR and the Congress of the Council of Europe working in close cooperation.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the CIVEX members adopted an opinion on the multilevel protection of the rule of law and fundamental rights which highlights the role of LRAs when it comes to working with civil society not only to protect the principles of rule of law but also to shape relevant policy initiatives and at the same time calls for a tripartite agreement with the Council of Europe and the Fundamental Rights Agency.
The local Election monitoring missions carried out jointly by the COR and the Congress in the May and June 2014 in Ukraine and Georgia were also discussed. The EA member Jerzy Zajakala, spokesperson of the COR delegation in Georgia reported on the outcomes of the elections and the assessment of the delegations.
Besides migration policy and the need to guarantee the principle of solidarity and responsibility sharing, CIVEX discussed the recently published enlargement report and the latest development in the candidate and pre candidate countries for the EU.
Mr Stanisław Szwabski, EA coordinator in the CIVEX commission and CoR co-chair of the Montenegro Joint consultative committee, gave a positive feedback on the last meeting of the JCC held in Kotor and emphasised that, in spite of the indications of the European Commission that no enlargement will take place in the next five years,"we must not reduce our effort. On the contrary we must continue supporting reforms and keeping up the motivation among the people. We also need to make sure that the Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) funds can be used in the best possible way in Montenegro to the benefit of the local level".
