HOW EUROCITIES CAN SUPPORT MEMBER CITIES

Henk Wolfert
DCMR Environmental Protection Agency
P.O. Box 843, 3100 AV Schiedam, The Netherlands
e-mail: henk.wolfert@dcmr.nl
EUROCITIES is the network of more than 130 large European cities and is aimed to exchange
knowledge and experience between member cities on all municipal domains like mobility, economics, environment, health, governance, social, et cetera. EUROCITIES is also influencing upcoming
European policies and legislation and creating awareness on all these issues. The input and way of
working of EUROCITIES is highly appreciated by the European Commission, the European Parliament and Council. The organisation is seen as a reliable partner in making new or revised European policies. A service that is also offered by EUROCITIES is to support member cities in drafting applications for European funds in order to finance projects or programs. EUROCITIES can
also offer their network to call for partners or to disseminate the final project results. This paper will
explain how this support works.

1.

Introduction

EUROCITIES is the network of major European cities. His members are the elected from local and
municipal governments of major European cities. EUROCITIES was founded in 1986 by the
mayors of six large cities: Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan and Rotterdam. Today,
EUROCITIES brings together the local governments of over 130 of Europe's largest cities and 40
partner cities. Together they govern 130 million citizens across 35 countries. Through six thematic
forums, a wide range of working groups, projects, activities and events EUROCITIES offers members a platform for sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas. They influence and work with the EU
institutions to respond to common issues that affect the day-to-day lives of Europeans. The objectives of EUROCITIES is to reinforce the important role that local governments should play in a
multilevel governance structure. EUROCITIES aims to shape the opinions of Brussels stakeholders
and ultimately shift the focus of EU legislation in a way which allows city governments to tackle
strategic challenges at local level. EUROCITIES policy priorities are:
- Citizens (enhancing social cohesion)
- Jobs (more employment)
- Climate (mitigation and adaptation)
Within these priorities, EUROCITIES activities address a wide range of policy areas affecting the
day-to-day lives of Europes citizens More information on these issues can be obtained at
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www.eurocities.eu
CITIZENS

CLIMATE

JOBS

employment
youth and education
housing/homelessness
poverty/exclusion
services/procurement
urban planning
regeneration
social inclusion

mitigation
adaptation
green growth
innovation
mobility
smart cities
energy efficiency

employment
youth and education
cohesion policy
entrepreneurship
migration/integration
smart cities
creative industries
social inclusion

table 1: brief overview subjects belonging to EUROCITIES priorities

Besides affecting EU legislation and requirements EUROCITIES also participates and supports in
projects subsidised by EU (life, INTERREG, URBACT, H2020, etc.).

2.

Structure of EUROCITIES

EUROCITIES is a network organization of cities (members) at a political level represented by

mayors and vice-mayors in the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and the Executive Committee
(ExCom). They are responsible for the strategy of EUROCITIES. The ExCom is responsible for the
decisions to be made having a political or policy impact. At the civil servant level (officers) there
are the forums that are covering almost all municipal domains. The forums plays an important role
in the contacts with the European institutions and in influencing the European legislation. Furthermore, the forums and the working groups play an important role in exchange of knowledge and
experience and the preparation of actions towards European Union to influence legislation or requirements. An overview of the EUROCITIES structure is depicted in figure 1.

figure 1: structure EUROCITIES

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EUROCITIES Environmental Forum (EEF) is often presided by a vice-mayor and a vicepresident which is more technical being a civil servant. The EEF is more or less the overarching
body for a number of working groups. The working groups of the EEF are depicted in figure 2.

figure 2: working groups of EUROCITIES Environmental Forum

Each working groups has its own objectives, work plan and priorities. Working Group Noise is
one of the largest working groups and is launched in 2006 and from then presided by the city of
Rotterdam. The working group has its own weblog (www.workinggroupnoise.com) providing and
disseminating information about noise, noise effects, noise policies and noise abatement.
The forums and the working groups activities are meetings, project fairs, workshops, congresses
but also drafting and publishing letters, position papers, brochures, reports, newsletters and charters.

3.

Possible roles EUROCITIES could play

Beside the activities described above, EUROCITIES is active in European programmes and projects. Sometimes the projects are initiated by EUROCITIES itself and sometimes they are invited to
join in European projects. EUROCITIES administrative office is stated in Brussels and has limited
administrative capacity in their office which is the main reason to focus on just a few priorities. Due
to this limited capacity it is not possible to join many European projects. However, the next services
are available:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.

Call for proposal

Partner search
Fee based support in drawing applications
Participation as a full partner
Participation as an observer
Participation as a member of steering group
Participation as a member of scientific advisory committee
Delivering a letter of recommendation or support
Dissemination of the results
Organizer project fairs
Offering the project a platform for exposure

A call for proposal is based on the calls published by the subsidy programs like INTERREG,
URBACT, H2020, LIFE, etc. These calls are often selected from all the calls that are published by
the European Union and these calls are addressed to subjects that have a local component. For instance the call could ask for proposals on innovative or smart local policies. The service that EUICSV22, Florence, Italy, 12-16 July 2015

The 22nd International Congress on Sound and Vibration

ROCITIES provides is the call for partners. If any member of EUROCITIES has an initiative fitting
in a call for proposals that city is allowed to use the network by sending out a call for partners for
that project idea. By filling in a form and sending it to EUROCITIES office all members and associated members receive an e-mail alert that a city is, or a few cities are, searching for partners. We
having sufficient partners EUROCITIES office can offer a fee based service to help the lead beneficiary and the other beneficiaries to draft the application. During this process EUROCITIES can
decide to join the project as a full partner or even as lead beneficiary which implies that EUROCITIES is the project leader of the proposed project. This only will be done when the project objectives fit in the priorities set by EUROCITIES. In case the project objectives are interesting, giving
added value for cities but not fitting with the priorities set by EUROCITIES, it could be decided to
choose for a less prominent role as observer. This is not an official role in the project and participation takes place without any further obligation to the EU programme. Other roles that are possible
are being a member of the steering committee or member of the scientific advisory committee. It
depends on the project definition whether these are defined in the project proposal and reimbursed
by the project or not. The roles described can be fulfilled by policy officers settled at the EUROCITIES office (administrative functions) or by members of the forums or working groups. If there is
no capacity anywhere to join the project and EUROCITIES sees and acknowledge the added value
for the local government a letter of recommendation or support can be delivered to the proposed
lead beneficiary. Besides this EUROCITIES forums or working groups can also offer a podium to
the project leaders to promote their projects by presenting the projects in the meetings and events of
the forums or working groups. EUROCITIES organises frequently project fairs in order to initiate
or collect project ideas or to promote some project ideas and to elaborate the first project idea. This
is done during the meetings of the Environmental Forum or working groups. During those meetings
it is also possible to present an initiative orally or by means of a poster. Last but not least EUROCITIES can be used as a channel to all European cities when disseminating the final results of the EU
financed projects.

4.

Conclusions

EUROCITIES can play a very important and supportive role in drafting proposal for EU funded
projects and subsequently offer support to find reliable partners and dissemination of the deliverables. It offers also possibilities for presenting and promoting the projects. Letters of support or recommendations enhance the credibility of an application. However, these services can only be provided when one of the partners of the proposed projects is a member of EUROCITIES.

REFERENCES
1 www.eurocities.eu.
2 www.workinggroupnoise.com
3 Wolfert, H, Developing proposals for European funding, closing congress HARMONICA
project, Brussels, 9 December (2014).

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