Copenhagen, 23/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - Cities and regions were congratulated by the European institutions on at the fifth Summit of Cities and Regions in Copenhagen on Friday 23 March for their role in sustainable urban development. The summit was organised by the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the Danish authorities. Speakers were keen to stress the need to make the economy more environmentally friendly.
With great elan, representatives of the European institutions explained that the answer to the economic crisis lies in “green solutions”, which cannot be introduced without the support of cities and regions. Summing up the summit on Friday, the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, set out the Danish Presidency's leitmotiv - it is time to think about a green transformation of the economy to solve the economic crisis. She said that this will require combined action, explaining that cities and regions' contributions will be crucial for the greening of the economy and indeed cities and regions are already active in this domain. Thorning-Schmidt said that Europe could become a green superpower, but this would only be possible with the help of cities and regions.
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, praised the role of local democracy, especially because cities crystallise all the problems of the future and the future of planet earth will be decided by cities and their challenges of social cohesion, ensuring a decent environment, cutting carbon emissions and having a clean, but effective, transport system. He said all this came under the power of local and regional leaders. Mercedes Bresso, the president of the CoR, called for EU politicians to work more closely with local and regional authorities to introduce multi-level governance and to put sustainable urban development high on the agenda. These aims are set out in the Copenhagen Statement published by the CoR at the end of the summit (see above). (MD/transl.fl)