 Local democracy in the Western Balkans faces many challenges. There are similar two challenges in other states, including EU member states. But we think that those in the Western Balkans are much more difficult, serious, and more complex. They are more difficult and more complex because of the weaker economic development and insufficiently functioning state, weaknesses in the rule of law, the heritage of recent wars, constitutional uncertainties, still present corruption, hate speech, and limitation of media freedom, and so on. These weaknesses at national level are generally reflected on the local and regional level. And they hamper the functioning of democracy at those levels. The most prominent challenges of local democracy is what is known as local state capture. This concept means the appropriation of power by leaders who are in power and are usually connected with certain informal groups. They control and use power for their own benefit. The most prominent mechanisms of a captured government are illicit or fixed public procurement, favorable treatment in employment and appointments, pressure on judicial authorities, and networking with judges and the police, manipulating civil society organizations, the misuse of the media, and so on. There are additional challenges facing local democracies such as an insufficient level of rule of law, a slow, often biased judiciary, the presence of corruption, negative demographic trends, the brain drain of young educated people, irregular migrations on the so-called Balkan route, low interest in elections. Here I have the example of the boycott of the opposition in Albania. The lack of implementation of constitutional judgments related to election laws. For example, 11 years local elections have not been held in Moster in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Local and regional authorities in the West of Balkans and their national authorities need help in finding a solution to these challenges. The best help would be opening up their prospects for EU accession. As had been said so far, the Committee of the Region supports the position that Western Balkan countries should join the European Union but provided that they meet all the criteria for membership. One form of help is certainly the activity implemented by the Committee of the Regents through the Western Balkans Working Group for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo and through the Joint Consultative Committees for Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. These tools must continue to be used and their role must be enhanced. All other EU institutions, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, especially representative offices in the Western Balkans, must step up their efforts in order to strengthen civil society, to strengthen watchdog organizations, to strengthen the rule of law, to establish stricter control over the use of pre-accession funds, to promote dialogue with citizens. It is also necessary to enhance the economic potential of Western Balkan countries and their region and cities, also in order to reduce the brain drain of the population. Therefore, we should also make use of the EU Western Balkans' summit in May this year in Zagreb to address this issue.