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News

The President of the Basque Parliament highlights the responsability of institutions in promoting citizen participation

The President of the Basque Parliament, Izaskun Bilbao, has taken part in the working meeting that Local and Regional Authorities have held in Leipzig (Germany) on 26 and 27 June under the title “Electronic Government Strategies for European Cities and Regions”. This meeting forms part of the activities for the World Summit on the Information Society of the United Nations. Before more than 100 European officials, Bilbao highlighted the need to offer citizens real opportunities to take part in decision making processes, as well as the obligation of institutions to operate transparently.

Izaskun Bilbao centred her intervention on the opportunity for greater openness to citizens that the new information and communication technologies offer to representative institutions, emphasising that these technologies not only favour the provision of services to the citizen and facilitate management, but also make it possible to establish flexible effective information mechanisms and for participation of citizens in the decision-making processes of the institutions that represent them. Bilbao underlined the need for institutions to take on a budgetary and organisational commitment that enables these goals to be achieved, by creating infrastructures, promoting training policies and furnishing the financial measures required in order to do so, while warning those attending of the need to avoid the risks of the so-called “digital divide”. Promoting the culture of responsibility and participation, especially among the youngest members of society, and training citizens in civic values, encouraging true opportunities for participation by simplifying languages and procedures and giving maximum visibility to the results arising from citizen contributions, were some of the issues raised by the President of the Basque Parliament in Germany.

The meeting held last weekend in Leipzig focused on the field of digital Government, and analysed the different strategies and good practices of European local and regional authorities on this matter. Bilbao spoke before representatives of the European Parliament and of the United Nations, members of the European Commission, mayors and other representatives of European cities such as Lyon, Leipzig or Riga; of regional governments such as Saxony or Catalonia, of European regional associations, together with academicians and specialists on the subject of new technologies and electronic government.

Izaskun Bilbao took part in the Leipzig meeting on behalf of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE), which for the last two years has been organising the preparatory work in Europe leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society on the subject of electronic democracy. The regional parliaments of Wales, Scotland, Umbria, the Azores, Andalusia, Madrid, the Belgian Francophone Community, Brussels and Flanders, coordinated by the Basque Parliament at the heart of CALRE, form the working group which has identified, analysed and compared the most significant local and regional strategies in Europe with regard to eDemocracy. This group has carried out a task of theoretical definition with the aim of condensing the principles that should guide any strategy that seeks to improve transparency and encourage the participation of citizens in public affairs through Information and Communication Technologies.

The meeting in Leipzig is included among the activities leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society, sponsored by the United Nations, which, after two years of work, is due to conclude in Tunis in mid November next. This is the first time that Local and Regional Authorities from all parts of the world have been invited to participate in a World Summit of the United Nations. The common position which they adopt will be formally presented in Bilbao on 9, 10 and 11 November next, within the framework of a Summit at which more than two thousand representatives of all the regions and cities in the world will be present, in order to reflect on the challenges and opportunities provided by new information and communication technologies in fields as different as health, economy, social integration or government and democracy. The conclusions of this meeting will be included in the Bilbao Plan of Action and Declaration and will form the main part of the contribution made by regions and cities worldwide to the World Summit on the Information Society.