In the conclusions adopted at the External Affairs Council on Monday 25 June, the Council of the EU requested that the European Commission and European External Action Service (EEAS) take better account of town and country planning questions in thematic policies and the political dialogue with the cities and local authorities in third countries.
The member states are therefore highlighting the importance of promoting personal connections at a local level and, in this connection, are emphasising decentralised cooperation and twinning between towns and the local authorities. The member states are calling on the Commission to speed up measures for enhancing multilevel cooperation, particularly twinning, as part of the future urban development programmes.
The Council is again highlighting the new European consensus for development up to 2030 and, in this regard, is emphasising the need to provide greater support to the integrated and multi-sectoral approach of the cities and local authorities. Finally, the conclusions reemphasise this message by asserting that “the fulfilment of EU policy objectives can only be achieved through strengthened partnerships with cities and relevant local authorities in third countries”.
Shortcomings
These are all new positive points according to Marlène Siméon, the new director of PLATFORMA, a pan-European coalition bringing together more than 100,000 local and regional authorities working in the development cooperation area. She considers that these conclusions represent the new urban agenda priorities.
She does, however, highlight certain shortcomings, beginning with the need to avoid exclusively focusing on the major cities, in addition to the lack of a specific programme on the local authorities in the future Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), which the European Commission presented in mid June (see EUROPE 12041). Ms Siméon also expressed her wish for local government to have observer status at the Council on development cooperation issues ('working party codev'), on the same basis as the NGOs.
The Austrian government is preparing to take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU and has already met PLATFORMA to discuss the role of the local authorities in development cooperation.
Please see the following link for the conclusions (in English): https://bit.ly/2MoDaP5. (Original version French by Pascal Hansens)