As the rapporteur Nikola Dobroslavic, President of the Croatian region of Dubrovnik-Neretva, emphasized, municipalities and cities in the Western Balkans in particular had to face tough obstacles. On the one hand, this is the legacy of previous armed conflicts, unresolved sovereignty and territorial disputes, authoritarian tendencies of incumbent politicians and parties at all levels, economic development at a fairly low level, negative demographic trends with high levels of emigration among young people and, on the other hand, a lack of the rule of law , a poorly developed civil society with a weak democratic political culture. Add to that a slow, inefficient and biased justice, widespread corruption, ethnically and religiously motivated violent extremism, inadequate local and regional authorities, weak financial decentralization, etc.

Franz Schausberger called for strong legal anchoring, if possible through constitutional laws, of the municipalities and regions in the Western Balkans. It should not be the case that the competences and self-administration of the regional and local level can be weakened at any time by simple legal regulation, which was the case in several countries after political changes.

The EU must press harder for the subnational levels to be strengthened in the course of the accession process. Certain fundamental tasks of the infrastructure would have to remain in the hands of the local public administration and not be handed over to market liberalization. The good training of local politicians and employees is also crucial.

For better communication of European policies, at least one local council should be nominated as "EU local council" in each municipality, which should also be provided with the latest information on a regular basis. This model, which works well in Austria, for example, was proposed by Commissioner Johannes Hahn for the other countries. It is also particularly important that the regions and municipalities and their assemblies are involved in the EU accession process from the start of their state as a whole.

The mayors of Budapest, Warsaw and Prague should also be supported, according to which the cities should also receive direct funding from the EU and not only through their respective national governments.