Brussels, 03/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - Cities must be able to take their place in the European political agenda. This was the message delivered by the European Commissioner for regional policy, Johannes Hahn, to the representatives of 300 European cities, meeting in Copenhagen for the URBACT Annual Conference, a European platform for sustainable urban development. Cities should not be left out because two thirds of all Europeans are city dwellers, he argued.
Although there are many legislative developments on the cities that are currently being discussed, the Commissioner urged all the main stakeholders, “to follow the process over the coming months closely and actively. Play your part. Share your experience. Make sure your voice is heard”. The most recent proposals for the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 have already got rid of the urban bonus for cities. This is the equivalent of a loss of €2.3 billion in comparison to the most recent Commission proposal. To prevent other instruments that benefit cities from disappearing in the next round of negotiations on the legislative package reforming cohesion policy (such as the 5% of European Regional Development Funds paid to the cities), cities will have to prepare to do battle. The Commissioner said that they had to ensure that cities were correctly taken into consideration in the next round of funding. He also said that it was good that URBACT provided more practical aid to the cities. To this end, he affirmed that he had proposed that, “funds should be set aside for Urban Innovative Actions to pilot new ways of tackling urban challenges. These will be an important contribution to building our cities of tomorrow”. (MD/transl.fl)