A INTRODUCTION

In the last two chapters an assessment has been offered of the impact of the European Charter of Local Self-Government (‘the Charter’), both in terms of its instrumental contribution to local self-government across the continent and more generally. In this chapter, there is an opportunity to stand back a little from the detail of that discussion and to draw together some rather broader thoughts about the current standing of the Charter and its future. The focus on the Charter's relationship to institutional developments in the Council of Europe is maintained but it is expanded to take into account the Council's own relationship to the European Union and the ways in which the two institutions may develop, with consequences for the Charter.

In undertaking this discussion, the image tentatively adopted will be that of the Charter as a form of institutional barometer in Europe. It could never be claimed that the Charter has, at any point, determined the broader course of events in Europe or that it will do so in the future but it does seem perfectly sensible to view its condition over the years as an indicator of the institutional climate of the continent as a whole. A primary use of barometers is, of course, in forecasting and there will be an attempt to peer into future possibilities at the end of the chapter but, before that, there will be a brief review of European weather conditions since the Charter's origins shortly after World War II.

Though the Charter as institutional barometer will, it is hoped, be a helpful image, its limitations have to be conceded. What is being suggested here is that an understanding of the role of the Charter may contribute to and may, at the same time, benefit from, a wider understanding of the treatybased relationships between states and their intergovernmental institutions which have characterised European developments in an era of great flux, reevaluation and consequent uncertainty. We are living, in post-World War II Europe, in conditions of great novelty in the history of international relations.