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:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)