History
The idea for a representation of regions within the administration of the European Union relates to some regions' long history as autonomous regions or non-sovereign countries. Examples include Flanders as a egion of Belgium, the Basque Country, which lies in both north-eastern Spain and south-west France, Catalonia which lies in eastern Spain and south-east France. In the UK, Scotland and Wales are countries rather than regions and are recognised as such by the UK government. They are non-sovereign countries within the UK state with their own national institutions, and even more so today since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. Northern Ireland is similarly recognised under the Good Friday Agreement, signed by the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, with the Northern Ireland Assembly. However due to the its geographical, historical, cultural and political relationships with the Republic of Ireland it is more often referred to as a "province". All of these places have growing or well established nationalistic sentiments (see Flemish Movement, Basque nationalism, Catalan nationalism, Galician nationalism, South Tyrol, United Ireland, Welsh self-government, Scottish independence and Cornish self-government movement).
Within the European Union regions had lobbied for an increased say in EU affairs, especially the German Länder. This resulted in the creation by the Maastricht Treaty of the Committee of the Regions, and provision for member states to be represented in the Council by ministers from their regional governments.
Read more about this topic: Committee Of The Regions
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)