The Committee of the Regions (CoR) wants to ensure that cities and regions are more involved in framing, implementing and evaluating EU policies with a territorial impact, and will lay the necessary foundations for the success of those policies. The opinion adopted within its plenary session recommends new measures to consolidate the exercise of European governance.

The follow-up opinion adopted by the Committee of the Regions members reports on progress made with regard to the 2009 White Paper on Multilevel Governance. In particular, it reports on the progress made in EU policies with a territorial dimension, such as the single market, the environment, energy, agriculture and fisheries, enlargement policies, development and neighbourhood policy; and it also recommends new measures to consolidate the exercise of this method of governance.

The CoR's call for multilevel governance has gained traction over the past few years in its partner institutions. This applies to the Lisbon Treaty, which has entrenched multilevel governance in the operation of the EU, as well as European Commission proposals on future cohesion policy presented in October 2011, which recognises the essential role of local and regional levels of government in framing and implementing EU programmes. The CoR is also increasingly recognised by the other institutions as a source of expertise in this area.

However, considerable progress still has to be made. The CoR therefore advocate the drawing up of a European Union Charter for Multilevel Governance, which should lead to more participation of local and regional authorities in the exercise of European democracy. CoR members also ask the Commission to consider adapting EU administrative law in order to establish more participatory procedures in accordance with the key values and principles of this future Charter. Furthermore, the CoR intends to continue its annual assessment of the situation of regionalisation and decentralisation in the European Union so as to provide a measure of progress observed towards local and regional authorities' political, judicial and fiscal autonomy.