Gathering at their April plenary session today, CoR members gave overwhelming backing to the draft opinion by PES member Hella Dunger-Löper, Berlin State Secretary for European Affairs (Germany), on Concrete steps for implementing the EU Urban Agenda.
"Strong cities are crucial for EU social, economic and territorial cohesion, since approximately 70% of the EU's population live in cities and suburbs. Therefore, the time has come to put words into action. Binding implementation efforts are now required from all those concerned, in particular the European Commission, to ensure that the urban agenda is effective", she urged.
While welcoming the pilot partnership projects proposed in the Pact of Amsterdam (which proposes 3-year action plans in 12 priority areas), the rapporteur calls for a new working method aimed at establishing coherence in urban policies through better coordination across governmental levels and the involvement of actors on the ground.
At the same time, urban and rural policies must be better linked, as they are complementary spaces: "EU policies must not encourage a competitive relationship between these two dimensions in so far as they overlap geographically, administratively and in terms of functional and thematic policies".
The opinion also calls for a review of ways to improve support for towns and cities, such as cooperation to improve cohesion policy instruments in urban areas, knowledge exchange on funding, and improving links between EU funding and private investment.
Moreover, the rapporteur stresses that assessing the impact of new legislation on urban areas needs to become a structural part of the EU decision-making, and that the urban dimension must be thoroughly anchored in the European semester.
Lastly, Ms Dunger-Löper calls for a White Paper that assesses the results of the partnerships, to be drawn up in 2017, and which should feed into the preparation of the new Structural Funds programming period.
The Pact of Amsterdam on the EU Urban Strategy will be endorsed during a meeting of the EU Ministers responsible for urban matters on 30 May. It will then feed into the Conclusions of the General Affairs Council, with a call to future Presidencies of the EU to incorporate it into their work programmes.
