Mr President, my report is on the proposal for tripartite contracts and agreements between the European authorities and the Member States, and local and regional authorities. This is, one might think, rather a mouthful for what is essentially a simple idea. The point is, as the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy pointed out in its opinion on this matter, much of the implementation of important aspects of European policy environmental policy, regional policy and other policies, including transport is carried out in Member States at a level of government below that of the centralised state government. And yet there is a danger of inadequate connection between the Commission, at the centre, and local and regional government. Any steps that can be taken to improve these connections are greatly to be welcomed and much to be encouraged. The Commission's proposal on tripartite contracts and agreements is a proposal for precisely such an improvement, and therefore my Group strongly welcomes it. The Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and the Environment Committee also welcome it and wish to carry it forward. One of the first pilot arrangements in terms of a tripartite agreement was among cities. It was based on the idea of a sustainable city for example Birmingham, Stockholm and other cities in the Union. It was about trying to figure out ways to make sustainability make sense. One of the interesting facts I discovered in reading a report on that pilot project was that the city of Birmingham could write to the central government in London and go for weeks or months without receiving a reply. Central governments in Member States are often very bad at maintaining adequate contact with local and city authorities and with city regions. If we are going to make progress in implementing policies in Europe, it is obvious that we must make sure there is interaction between central government, local government and government at the European level. It is important to stress and I address in particular my friend and opponent Mr Bradbourn on this point that this suggestion for tripartite contracts and agreements is not only a suggestion about regional government of which I know Mr Bradbourn disapproves it is also a suggestion about local government, of which I rather think he and his party strongly approve. We must ensure that there is real contact and connectivity and that we get things moving. Sometimes in this House we use the word 'region' in a very misleading sense. For example, Scotland, the constituency which I represent, is for some purposes called a region. But most of the inhabitants of Scotland think it is a nation within a multinational state. And Scotland itself has extremely varied regions. Only yesterday I was visiting the South of Scotland Partnership, who were discussing some of the particular problems facing the rural south of Scotland, which is very different linguistically, culturally, socially and agriculturally from central Scotland and from highland Scotland. They raised with me the problem of the town - the old borough. Nowadays it is very difficult to sustain small towns. Cities and regions have great identity but towns, in our local government system, have lost that. The sustainable city is currently being trialled as a pilot project. What about the sustainable town? We must look at governance in Europe at many levels: the region, the locality, and entities which are lower than the locality in terms of current governmental structures. All these things matter. The report adopted by the Constitutional Affairs Committee needs to be amended, not in such a way as to break the spirit of what was agreed in that Committee, but in a way that completes that spirit by building in some of the points agreed on by the Environment Committee, all of the points agreed on by the Legal Affairs Committee, and some of the things which have emerged from the pilot projects under way. I strongly commend the report in its amended form to the House, and I very much hope that it will be carried in the vote tomorrow.

Political group: Verts-ALE