Assembly of European Regions

The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is the largest independent network of regions in wider Europe. Bringing together regions from 35 countries and 15 interregional organizations, AER is a forum for interregional cooperation. Historical background On 15 June 1985, at Louvain-la-Neuve (Walloon Brabant), 47 Regions and 9 interregional organizations founded the Council of the Regions of Europe (CRE), which would later become the Assembly of European Regions in November 1987 at the second General meeting of the Regions of Europe in Brussels. The year 1985 was proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Youth Year. The same year AER launched its first programme, Eurodyssey, designed to promote and encourage youth mobility. In 1990, AER's Tabula Regionum Europae published the first map of its kind citing a Europe made up of regions and not simply of countries. The year after, the principle of subsidiarity became the leading AER campaign to promote the role of regions in all European and national decision-making processes. Soon thereafter its success was to be evident as the principle was recognized in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.