European Committee of the Regions

Created in 1992 under the Treaty of Maastricht, and established in 1994, the European Committee of the Regions (also known as Committee of the Regions CoR) is a political assembly that represents local and regional authorities across the EU.

Acting in an advisory capacity, the CoR assists the Parliament, the Council and the Commission on certain topics affecting local or regional interests (Article 307 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)). The CoR must be consulted in the following areas:

economic, social and territorial cohesion,
Structural Funds,
European Regional Development Fund,
European Social Fund,
employment and social affairs,
education,
youth,
vocational training,
culture and sport,
environment,
energy and climate change,
transport,
trans-European networks, and
public health.

The Parliament, the Council and the Commission may also consult the CoR on any other matter they consider appropriate, and the CoR may draw up opinions on its own initiative.

The CoR members are representatives of regional and local bodies who either hold a regional or local authority electoral mandate or are politically accountable to an elected assembly (Article 300 TFEU). The maximum number of CoR members is 350 and the Council of the EU appoints them for a 5-year term in accordance with the proposals made by each EU country (Article 305 TFEU).

The CoR also has the right to bring legal actions before the Court of Justice of the European Union in two instances:

to protect its own institutional rights;
to ask for the annulment of new EU legislation, on the topics where it must be consulted, that it considers being in breach of the principle of subsidiarity.