Context:
The next EU budget expected to be adopted by the end of the year provides multiple funding opportunities to cities. Among these, Next Generation EU via the Recovery and Resilience Facility and Cohesion funds are particularly relevant to cities and are expected to boost and ensure a territorially balanced recovery.
In this context, Member States are currently preparing their National Recovery Plans that will be at the basis of the allocation of the funds, that they are expected to submit to the European Commission by the end of April. Given the little time available to Member States for preparing the plan but also due to the lack of specific provision for the involvement of local authorities in the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation ‘Establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility’, initial intelligence suggests that the involvement of cities so far has not been extensive.
Some Member States have already begun consultations with local authorities during the summer, and some are planning to continue consultations and boost local involvement in the coming months.
In the past months, Eurocities has started a dialogue with EU institutions to ensure that the impact of this crises on cities is well recognised and that provisions are put in place to make cities central for the green recovery in Europe. Eurocities is working withthe European Commission and European Parliament to ensure that specific provisions for the involvement of local authorities are included in the final version of the regulation, as well as to ensure that the priorities and guidelines provided by the Commission to Member States have a strong urban dimension.
Over the summer Eurocities worked to better target Member States, and we have provided cities with information to kickstart a dialogue with national governments on the National Recovery Plans.
