With the EU at a cross roads, we need to seize the opportunity to change the way things are done in Europe.
Europe’s cities and metropolitan areas offer the right scale to respond to the challenges Europe is facing. With the objective of co-creating societies where people come first, EUROCITIES is launching the ‘Cities4Europe – Europe for citizens‘ campaign.
At a time when Europe is striving to retain its legitimacy and relevance in the face of growing disillusionment and Euroscepticism, we at EUROCITIES believe that cities can provide a critical link with citizens and can play a crucial role in shaping the future of Europe.
Daniël Termont (@DanielTermont), president of EUROCITIES and mayor of Ghent underlines that as “local leaders [we] must commit to engage our citizens in a dialogue about our future. At a time when politics, both at national and European level, is failing to match people’s expectations, we at EUROCITIES are about to launch a process aimed at rebuilding and strengthening trust between citizens and public authorities.”
The campaign will come alive through various activities organised by EUROCITIES member cities, which between them govern more than 130 million citizens across 39 countries.
‘Cities4Europe – Europe for citizens’ wants to inspire cities and other levels of government, including the EU institutions, to pursue mechanisms and tools that engage citizens in policy making, strengthening new forms of democracy across Europe.
‘Cities4Europe – Europe for citizens’ will come alive on Monday 7 May 2018, with a simultaneous online kick-off involving all participating cities.
On the same day EUROCITIES will organise the campaign’s European launch event in Brussels. A high-level public debate will take place at the Bozar, and will be followed by a private political gathering hosted by the mayor of Brussels, Philippe Close (@PhilippeClose), at the City Hall. The campaign’s launch in Brussels will represent a great opportunity for all cities participating in the campaign to make their voice heard at the European level, while connecting with a large number of European citizens living in Brussels.
Cities and citizens recommendations will be collected throughout the campaign, and will then be presented at the next EUROCITIES annual meeting, taking place in Edinburgh at the end of November 2018, six months ahead of the 2019 European Parliament elections.
Citizens, organisations, networks and municipalities wishing to get involved in ‘Cities4Europe – Europe for citizens’ can visit the campaign’s dedicated website, where all activities and news related to the campaign are showcased.
To receive more information about the campaign, feel free to contact Federico Guerrieri, campaign coordinator, at cities4europe@eurocities.eu
Join us in May 2018, to build a better and more citizen-focused Europe!
PS: ‘Cities4Europe – Europe for citizens’ is now also on Facebook
And we regularly tweet using #cities4europe
