The CLARE/CoR contact group took place on 10 December 2012 in Paris. The main topics of the debate were the priorities of the Congress and the CoR for 2013 and the future cooperation between the two institutions. The members of the contact group also discussed the issue of good governance. Mr Dariusz Wróbel, Mayor of Opole Lubelskiego, said that "it is important to look into the link between effective and functional self-governance at the local and regional level and the proper application of the subsidiarity principle (within the EU but also on national context). There is the need to explore the assumption that the current difficult financial and economic situation is used in some countries as an excuse for further centralisation of powers or the scaling back of regional reforms".