The Regional Council of Southwest Finland is one of Finland's 19 regional councils. Regional councils are joint municipal authorities. Their role is to operate both as regional development authorities and as planning and lobbying organisations.

The Council is comprised of 28 municipalities, which finance the Council's operations with contributions that are proportionate to the size of their populations.

Promoter of Regional Development

The Council is responsible on a regional level for land use planning. The Council also formulates a 20-year Regional Plan and a Regional Programme that is reviewed every four years to coincide with the term that elected councillors serve in office. These aim to harmonise measures from various official quarters which have an impact on regional development.

The Council also grants Regional Development funds for projects that put the goals of the Regional Programme and plan into action.

Lobbying is facilitated by the close contacts between the Council and members of parliament who live in the province.

International Operator

In addition to being responsible for administering the EU programmes implemented in the province, the Regional Council of Southwest Finland maintains contacts internationally. The Council has a lobbying office in Brussels that is shared with the City of Turku and the universities. The Council also operates an outreach office in Turku for InteractPoint information and consulting units.

A Democratic Decision-Maker

The Regional Council's highest decision-making body is its 100-member Assembly.  The members of the Assembly are municipal councillors from their home municipalities.

The 19-member Managing Board, which meets once a month, functions as the executive body of the Assembly.

Chairman of the Board of the Regional Council chairs the board meetings.