European and other international treaties and standards do not either explicitly prohibit or firmly authorise the recourse to recall, and recall exists in the legislation and in the legal traditions of a number of countries, European or not. This is true for mayors and local elected representatives as it is for other authorities. The European Charter of Local Self-Government recognises the free exercise of the functions of the local elected representatives - as does the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, in its related work - while it remains at the same time open to direct democracy processes, as complementary tools.