Committee of the Regions

Rare EU honor: Kaiser, children and their rights

Carinthia's Governor Peter Kaiser will submit his opinion to the Committee of the Regions in Brussels this week.

(Bild: Markus Gassler)

This week, Carinthian Governor Peter Kaiser (SPÖ) will not be in Klagenfurt, but in another important capital city: Brussels, the headquarters of the EU. No Carinthian politician has had the chance to make a statement for the Committee of the Regions since 1999.

It was only in January that Kaiser was elected rapporteur for child protection in the consultative Committee of the Regions (CoR) in Brussels. Kaiser is now submitting a statement to the CoR - which has been in existence since 1994 and is made up of more than 300 representatives from 200 European regions.

The aim is to improve the development and expansion of integrated child protection systems in Europe. In concrete terms, this means that the protection and rights of our smallest and youngest fellow citizens should be improved and standardized throughout the EU.

The central questions here are, for example: How can children grow up safely and freely? What is needed to ensure that childcare is provided across the board? What are the consequences of child poverty and how can it be prevented? To what extent can children's needs be anchored throughout the EU?

Children, Kaiser and Carinthia
It is not only children who are in the EU spotlight, but also emperors and Carinthia: Only rarely are Carinthian regional politicians nominated as rapporteurs for this topic. The last time this honor was bestowed was shortly before the turn of the millennium on the controversial red veteran Adam Unterrieder.

Kaiser's plan to make Carinthia the "most child and family-friendly region in Europe" is likely to have helped him. "Children deserve the best that politics can do for them at all levels. The European regions in particular are crucial, as child protection is ultimately implemented and put into practice locally in educational and social institutions," says Kaiser ahead of the plenary session at which his opinion is to be adopted. It will then be forwarded as a recommendation to the EU member states in the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the EU Commission.