Summary of Koenraad De Ceuninck’s presentation given during the roundtable Citizen’s Rights and Challenges to Democracy in Croatia (English and Croatian version):
Second part of roundtable discussion was opened by Koenraad De Ceuninck. He spoke about the relationship of local democracy in Belgium and European values. He claimes there are two approaches of europeanization of local politics in Belgium. Top down approach, in which European rules and policies are implemented. The bottom-up approach, in which the nation-state or local actors participate in European networks. During the 1990s Belgium was far from the European Union at the local level (“Far Away from Brussels”). There was a low level of public awareness, but today the situation has changed and interest in European values is growing. He sees decentralization as a core European value but also as a trend in Belgian local government. At the end, he urged for more discussion on local democracy and transferring responsibility to the local government.
U drugom krugu okruglog stola govorio je Koenraad De Ceuninck. Govorio je o odnosu lokalne demokracije u Belgiji i europskih vrijednosti. Tvrdi da u Belgiji postoje dva pristupa europeizacije na lokalnoj razini. Top down pristup u kojem se implementiraju europska pravila i javne politike. Bottom up pristup u kojem nacionalna država, odnosno lokalni akteri sudjeluju u europskim mrežama. Navodi da je Belgija tijekom 1990-ih na lokalnoj razini bila daleko od Europske unije, „Far Away from Brussels“. Postojala je slaba informiranost građana, ali danas se situacija promijenila te interes za europske vrijednosti raste. Spominje decentralizaciju kao središnju europsku vrijednost i trend u lokalnoj vlasti u Belgiji. Usprkos tome, potrebno je više rasprave o prenošenju odgovornosti na lokalnu razinu kako bi se ona što više razvila.