Brussels, 23/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - The informal meeting of ministers of urban development of the European Union closed with the adoption of the Toledo Declaration. At the end of the meeting, ?the Spanish minister of housing, Beatriz Corredor, stated that the Toledo Declaration “sets out the European Union's political commitment to defining and applying integrated urban regeneration as one of the key tools of the 2020 strategy”. During the two-day meeting, member states agreed that "an integrated urban policy approach is a critical factor behind short and medium-term economic competitiveness of a sustainable economy”, Corredor pointed out.
The Spanish minister highlighted that 70% of the population in Europe lived in urban areas, which was why “it is not possible to have a more sustainable, more integrated and smarter Europe without more innovative, more energy-efficient, more sustainable and therefore more inclusive cities”. ??
In his contribution focusing on climate change, the commissioner for regional policy Johannes Hahn underlined the fact that “more than 60% of CO2 emissions are produced in urban areas”. For this reason, he said: “Europe must take the lead, do something in favour of the climate and above all, carry out a series of measures to improve the situation, not only in European cities, but in the entire world”.
In an effort to tackle the “physical, social and economic” decline of our cities, it is necessary to “recover the essence of the European city, while moving towards a model of the sustainable city”, explained Corredor. But how? (1) Regenerate the city by recovering “some of what has been lost from the traditional European city in terms of density, complexity and the merging of different functions” as well as “the city already built by way of the renovation of buildings and accommodation by adapting them to new bio-climate techniques and new energy efficiency requirements”; (2) Improve: - public resources and areas, promoting access to nature and urban biodiversity, improving public transport by setting up proximity policies that limit extensive development of neighbourhoods on the outskirts; - the “urban metabolism” by reducing the consumption of natural resources such as water and soil, in the context of waste, primarily by re-using them and then recycling them.
Corredor concluded that “we need to reinvent the city and build it on a human scale, with neighbourhoods where cohabitation is possible, with accommodation that is both in dignity, comfortable and efficient from an energy viewpoint. This means adopting an innovative and sustainable approach, which obviously involves fighting against climate change and promoting social integration and economic development”. For further information regarding the results obtained at the informal Toledo meeting: EUROPE 10165. (G.B./transl.fl)