Ladies and gentlemen!
An international jury met in Innsbruck on 2nd February 2007 to select this year‘s Emperor-Maximilian-Prize-winners. The jury proposed two personalities who have made outstanding contributions to European local and regional politics: Dr. Michael Häupl, President of the Council of European Municipalities and Regi-ons, Governor and Mayor, and Mr. Graham Meadows, retired Director General for regi-onal policy of the European Commission in Brussels.
Both have rendered great service to European local and regional policy in the course of their professional and political careers, especially at European level. Allow me to briefly introduce the laureates.
Dr. Michael Häupl was born in Altlengbach, Lower Austria, on 14th September 1949. After graduating in biology he became a member of the scientific staff at Vienna‘s Museum of Na-tural History. Very early on, after his election to chairman of the Young Generation of the Social Democratic party, he was elected mu-nicipal councillor and member of the regional parliament of Vienna in 1983 and has since been a member of this institution.
Soon afterwards, in 1988, Dr. Michael Häupl was appointed acting municipal councillor for sports and the environment of the Viennese government.
In 1995 he was elected mayor and governor of the Austrian capital city of Vienna. It is a tradi-tion recognised by all political parties that the mayor of Vienna should also be president of the Union of Austrian Cities. I may add that I very much enjoyed being its vice-president even if I am not generally fond of vice-presidencies.
In this particular case I found it easy because Dr. Michael Häupl ultimately always put the interests of Austrian cities first, be they big or small ones. I have rarely seen anyone so well capable of separating his office as mayor and governor of Vienna from his office as presi-dent of all Austrian cities.
Due to his commitment to European politics and after serving as executive president of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions for several years, Dr. Michael Häupl succeeded the former French president Valery Giscard d‘Estaing in 2004 to the presidency of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions.
The Council of European Municipalities and Regions is the European version of a compre-hensive network of municipalities and cities, and Austria has always played a significant role in this institution. It was this very Council that placed Innsbruck into the European context because after the war, it gave DDr. Alois Lug-ger a platform for playing an important role in European local and regional politics. This ultimately allowed him to bring the Olympic Games to Innsbruck in 1964 and 1976.
Mayor Dr. Michael Häupl realised early on that Vienna had a great and special significance in the European local and regional context. He worked tirelessly to establish networks bet-ween Vienna and other European towns and regions and he put important political issues such as the provision of public services of ge-neral interest on the European political agen-da. Dr. Michael Häupl seized the opportunity to make Vienna the hub and centre of central and eastern European efforts and to spread democracy in these countries. Only recently did he request a more socially oriented Europe before the Committee of the Regions in his
capacity as chairman of the Council of Euro-pean Municipalities and Regions.
We have a great deal in common in Europe but what is lacking is not only a common so-cial awareness but also a joint approach to this common social responsibility. I myself come from the Christian democratic movement and I agree with Mayor and Governor Dr. Häupl on many points here.
In accordance with his beliefs, he has called for a stronger role for the cities in European policy. His message is: Up till now the shaping of Europe has been overly dominated by the liberal – some would say neoliberal – market ideas of the European Commission and the European Council. The European social model, successful in many member states of the Eu-ropean Union including Austria, seemed to be pushed into the background in the process.
Using the progressive liberalisation pursued by Brussels, especially the privatisation of public services as an example, Dr. Michael Häupl has found time and again that there is a distinct gap between the European policy of the Com-mission and the concerns of the towns and municipalities that have to fulfil their obliga-tions to their citizens.
Together with Dr. Michael Häupl, I have al-ways supported the view that certain public infrastructures must not be sacrificed to the craze for privatisation and that these infra-structures should be considered a social asset for our populations and for Europe, just like the achievements of a modern social state in the provision of public services of general in-terest.
However, a debate is necessary on this new European social model and successful
experi-ments and actual facts must be taken into con-sideration. What we need to claim together is a Europe-wide approach to social policy.
As for the closeness of the European Union to its citizens, a much-quoted issue, Governor Dr. Häupl said: „I believe that the govern-ments, the Commission and the Council can be and must be convinced of the importance of listening to their citizens if they want to be accepted – but on the other hand, the citizens need to be told that Europe concerns them, concerns us all! We must motivate our citizens to actively contribute to the shaping of a uni-ted Europe.“
Dr. Michael Häupl‘s efforts were largely re-cognised by the Commission and it was noted that urban development programs work best when the towns and regions are closely invol-ved in the development and implementation of programmes. This involvement has some-times been painfully absent both in national and European programmes.
Many sustainable European initiatives and net-works can be ascribed to Dr. Michael Häupl:
He was particularly committed to the success-ful LOGON (Local Governments Network), which he initiated with the active support of the former Secretary-General of the Union of Austrian Cities, Dr. Erich Pramböck, who is with us today.
LOGON was established by the Union of Austrian Cities in Vienna in 1998 under the patronage of the Council of European Muni-cipalities and Regions and quickly developed into an important platform for an exchange of experiences between the unions of the candidate countries of recent years and the members of the European Union. Central and
eastern European countries were thus given an opportunity to get to know democracy at local and regional levels and to benefit from its achievements and advantages.
Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Warsaw, Ljublja-na und Zagreb are examples for cooperation agreements that mainly involve Vienna. The policies concerned range from the environ-ment to culture to staff trainings.
I mentioned before that Dr. Michael Häupl has been President of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions since 2004. When he was elected in Maastricht, he said:
„My work as President of the Council of Euro-pean Municipalities and Regions will focus on the European Social Model which is centred on growth, employment and social justice. Be-cause only if Europe is perceived to guarantee these values will it be accepted by its citizens.“
– a concise statement with an unequivocal message.
In this context I may say how pleased I am that Mayor Hilde Zach and myself succeeded, one year previously, to bring the European Day of Local Communities 2006, the plenary of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, to Innsbruck.
The European Day brought more than 1000 European mayors and local politicians to Inns-bruck and resulted in a resolution that is defi-nitely pathbreaking:
„We urgently request – no matter whether the Constitution which we support is retained in its current version or not – that the progress achieved on behalf of the municipalities and regions and for the democratic work of the Union be maintained and consolidated. We
call upon the European institutions and natio-nal governments to make sure that correspon-ding action is taken. In view of the necessity to re-establish trust between the Union and its citizens, we suggest that the future Constitu-tion or an equivalent treaty should include the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which today forms part of our acquis commu-nautaire.“
This is a very important, decisive resolution that sums up the achievements of Dr. Michael Häupl and allows us to award him the Emper-or-Maximilian-Prize today.
Congratulations!
Graham Meadows was born on 17th Decem-ber 1941 in Stratford-upon-Avon.
He started his professional career as a jour-nalist working for a local newspaper, before he wrote for the „Farmers Weekly“ – and this is where we have our common ground since I come from a background of scientific agri-cultural policy – and became the head of his magazine‘s office in Edinburgh.
At the same time he studied political econo-mics and graduated with honours.
As early as in 1975 he joined the political department of DG Agriculture. Between 1981and 1984 he was advisor to Gaston Thorn, President of the Commission for Ag-riculture, Fisheries, Environmental Affairs and Budget Issues.
From 1985 to 1988 – under the commission presidency of the most eminent European po-litician Jaques Delors – Mr. Graham Meadows was head of cabinet to Stanley Clinton Davis, Commissioner for Environment, Nuclear Safety
and Transport. It was thanks to his personal commitment that the European Community, for the first time ever, was given responsibi-lity for environmental policy and that, subse-quently, environmental issues were taken into account in all European and national policies.
As Governor Dr. Durnwalder mentioned, ag-ricultural policy is as important for the entire province of the Tyrol as is rural development.
The management of long haul through traf-fic is crucially linked to environmental issues, and as Tyroleans we would like to see more understanding from the European Commissi-on. It is a laborious process, but together we will hopefully find ways out of this burdening scenario.
In 1989, as Director for Regional Policy, Mr.
Graham Meadows was put in charge of revi-sing European regional funding for former in-dustrial regions as well as of rural development - two areas that are obviously closely linked.
In this capacity he had to fight more than one battle with national governments to ensure that EU funds were used effectively. He wan-ted the municipalities and regions to noticeably benefit from the European Structural Funds and to be involved in the decision-making process, and he always tried to make sure that the citizens actually got their fair share in the benefits.
In 2004 Graham Meadows was appointed Di-rector-General of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy. Despite the pressure put on by some of the richer states in order to cut down on the budget, Mr. Graham Meadows not only ensured the continued existence of regional policy – he even managed to reorga-nise it and to put it at the very heart of the new European strategy on the promotion of growth and employment.
I believe that the richer regions have to assu-me their responsibility to the poorer regions in Europe, and that this solidarity contribution will slowly become second nature to the na-tion states as member states of the European Union. This will contribute to peace in Europe – not only to social peace, but social peace is a prerequisite for a more general peace.
For many years, Mr. Graham Meadows urged for the provision of structural funds, which has also benefited, and continues to benefit, those parts of the province of the Tyrol that are dis-advantaged due to their natural framework conditions. In many of our formerly less fa-voured or economically less developed regions we have been able to reach the average level of regional development, not least because of these aids.
Graham Meadows also resolutely stood up for the European Solidarity Funds; it was thanks to aids from these funds that decisive help could be granted after the flood disaster in the Tyrol in 2005. We would not have had a legal claim on this support.
As Director-General of DG Regio Mr. Gra-ham Meadows also made a key contribution to the EU Financial Forecast 2007 to 2013. In his view the new European Cohesion Policy should lead to better prospects for growth and employment - an objective that clearly under-lines the economic modernisation programme of the Lisbon strategy.
Graham Meadows is a personality in Euro-pean regional development to whom the en-hancement of cross-border cooperation has always been particularly dear. When it comes to cross-border cooperation, we are a living role model. We, that is the province of the Ty-rol, the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol
and the Autonomous Province of Trentino.
Together we have bought a house in Brussels, which is located in the near neighbourhood of the Committee of the Regions and of the Eu-ropean Parliament. We act as joint representa-tion at the European institurepresenta-tions and I believe that, due to the cultural differences between the minorities and the majority populations, we are called upon to be a peaceful example of the coexistence of different ethnic groups.
The fact that, over the last few years, we have also been able to enhance cooperation in economic, cultural, social and educational matters is also an achievement of the regional parliaments and governments of these three regions, for which I would like to thank them sincerely.
Due to its geographic situation as a bridge between the North and the South of Europe, and even more so due to the European think-ing and actthink-ing of its political representatives, the Tyrol has always been, and continues to be, internationally oriented.
We must continue to pursue our common objective; we must continue to defend the shared interests of the provinces and regions and to give them weight. We must do every- thing to benefit from the chances offered by this Europe, as governor Durnwalder put it.
Personalities like Graham Meadows are a spe-cial role model in that respect and if, today, we decorate an active regional and municipal politician and someone who used to work in the administration of the European Union, we are convinced that the international jury made the right decision.
Mr. Graham Meadows, allow me sincerely to congratulate you on this award.
I would like to assure both award winners that it is a great honour for the sponsors of this prize – the city of Innsbruck and the province of the Tyrol – to present you now with the awards.