"The role of the capital cities in the EU Urban Agenda" - Main contents
European Commission
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Commissioner for Regional Policy
"The role of the capital cities in the EU Urban Agenda"
Meeting of 28 Mayors: Developing an EU Urban Agenda
Rome, 1 October 2014
It is a great honour and a great pleasure for me to be here today. I would like to thank you for hosting this meeting, and hosting it in such a magnificent place.
When we organised the first meeting of EU capital mayors two years ago, we did not know what to expect. You proposed during the CITIES Forum in February to host a second meeting. This is a sign that this unique forum brings added value to you and your cities. So thank you once again, Professor Marino for organising this meeting.
I have championed a stronger role of cities in our policies: in my own portfolio cohesion policy, but also in other areas of EU policy for which we depend heavily on you for their success. I am at the end of my five year term as Commissioner responsible for regional and urban policy; and I can proudly say that we have made considerable progress together during these five years. We have a cohesion policy with a strong urban dimension and we have a directorate general within the Commission responsible for regional and urban policy.
These are significant achievements but I believe we can do more to put cities at the heart of EU policy making. Without the cities we can never come closer to reaching our ambitious Europe 2020 targets. Without the cities there is no sustainable exit from the crisis. Without the cities there will be no ownership of the European agenda. We need you to reach our common objectives. That is why I decided to hold a public consultation on the EU urban agenda.
The public consultation closed last Friday and we have received responses from a wide range of actors: Member States, city associations and platforms, cities, NGOs, academics, business and individuals. In total over 200 stakeholders have responded, and more contributions are to come.
So you would forgive me if I am not in a position today to provide you with a thorough analysis. But we can see already that a broad agreement on the need of an EU urban agenda is emerging. Whether to improve coordination of policies; to establish stronger links with citizens and improve their lives; to improve implementation of agreed strategies; to solve pressing societal challenges, such as the carbon neutral economy; there is a clear demand for a European approach to urban development.
The message is also clear on what is needed and what is not. Everybody agrees that subsidiarity needs to be respected. Everybody agrees that no new legislation or new structures are needed.
Clear support is emerging for a new working method to ensure a better involvement of cities in the EU policy process. Moreover, many argue that this needs to be combined with a focus on priorities of special relevance to the EU and its cities, especially priorities linked to Europe 2020.
Clearly we need to analyse each response in greater detail. Our ambition is to have a first comprehensive summary of the consultation by the end of this year. We also have a series of follow-up questions. For instance, do we focus on helping individual cities to fulfil their ambitions, or do we focus on urban areas as part of larger territories? Do we focus on governance and other horizontal issues, or do we focus on a limited number of challenges particularly relevant for urban areas and for which cities are best placed to address them (such as energy)?
A minimalistic approach to an EU urban agenda would concentrate on better understanding how our policies affect urban areas and on increasing synergies and avoiding conflicting impacts on the ground.
A more ambitious approach would transpose our Europe 2020 objectives into urban objectives and actions adapted to the diverse realities of Europe cities, involving the national level to agree with their cities on targets, strategies and actions.
But it is not even sure that a single approach is the most useful; the urban agenda could include a method to identify the best course of action, different in different fields, different for different cities, and different at different governance levels.
It is not likely either that we will have a revolutionary change. It is more likely that we will see gradual strengthening of a more comprehensive and transparent urban dimension of our policies and cities engagement in our policy processes. Rome was not built in one day and the same can be said about our urban agenda.
As I said, responses to our questions are still coming in and the debate will not finish with this consultation. Rather, this is an important step to bring our debate on the EU Urban Agenda decisively forward. We are now at a stage when stakeholders from the local to the EU level are debating the EU urban agenda across Europe. And I am not here just to tell you what others have said. I would like to hear your views.
Some of you have sent your contributions. But even so it would be useful to hear your arguments in more detail, especially about what you think the Commission should and should not do, and how you see the interaction between different government levels. I also believe it would be important to hear from you what has been forgotten in the debate and should be brought in.
My final plea as the outgoing Commissioner responsible for the EU urban agenda is that you help us to keep the momentum in this process that we set off in February with our CITIES forum. Only a rolling stone gathers no moss.
The urban agenda process needs to be kept alive and pushed forward by the Commission but also by you. You, as capital cities have a particularly important role to play in that you are the most important urban actor in your country. You have the ability to engage with your governments; you can dialogue with your regions; you have the capacity to engage in national and European networks; you can be the role models for other cities across Europe. If you are not with us, very few cities will.
It would be up to the next Commissioner to define her priorities in the area of urban development and how she intends to continue the work on the EU Urban Agenda. But it is up to you to decide how to consolidate your capacity to steer the discussion; to ensure that your views are taken into account in developing EU policies; and to exert the political influence that derives from the key role capitals play.
There are many ways to do it, but you may consider for example to convene once or twice a year in advance of key European events and to issue political recommendations fixing the capitals' priorities. The revision of the EU2020 agenda next spring would be a great opportunity. Your contribution to that debate will help to give recognition to cities' fundamental role to reach our common policy objectives - that is what an EU urban agenda is all about.
Again, thank you, Professor Marino, and all of you for these years of intense and fruitful debate .
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