On May 7^th 2018, YouthProAktiv attend the European launch event “Cities4Europe- Europe for citizens” organised by Eurocities, Bozar and city of Brussels. The different panelists presented the different Eurocities  initiatives and highlighted the main needs for a real dialogue with policy-makers that will help to improve the quality and sustainability of European cities.

Eurocities  was founded in 1986 by the mayors of Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan and Rotterdam and is the network of mayor European cities. Their members are the elected local and municipal governments of major European cities. Currently, they bring together the local governments of over 140 of Europe´s largest cities and over 45 partner cities that between them govern 130 million citizens across 39 countries. Through six thematic forums, a wide range of working groups, projects, activities and events, they offer 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 live of Europeans.

Their main objective is to reinforce the important role that local governments should play in multilevel governance structure. For that reason, they aim 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.

In the framework of the campaign “Cities4Europe- Europe for citizens”, YouthProAktiv joined  the opportunity to listen both European, national, and local political leaders and cultural personalities in a high-level public debate.

Philippe Close, mayor of Brussels, highlighted the importance of  cities with active citizens in continuous relation with policy makers.  In his opinion, it is essential to maximise citizen participation in cities policy- making process. In the same line, the European Commissioner for the environment, Karmenu Vella and the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, strengthened the idea of the need for citizens collective encounter to better be heard as well as better cooperation between cities.

Gilles Pargneaux, Councillor in charge of Europe, Lille Metropole and Member of the European Parliament, foregrounded the importance of mayors in the fight against the division through cooperation and empathy. In his words, “Even if  city councils are different, then cannot close without relation each other by means of projects”.

Cultural personalities such us Philippe Van Leeuw, Belgian film director; Phillippe Van Parijs, Belgian philosopher and economist and Saskia Sassen, sociologist went through their different projects on cities sustainability highlighting the importance of the legacy that we are leaving for future generations. Ingrid Pecquet, director of Recyclart, went in detailed through his project aiming to tackle unemployment through different art projects that  integrate them in  society through artistic work in their own neighborhood.

Always focused on strong cooperations and partnerships as the basis for sustainable development, the event was furthermore pointing out the  importance of the next European Parliament elections for recovering the dialogue between citizens and policy makers.

In the President of Eurocities, Daniel Termont´s words “as a city leaders, we share Commission president Juncker´s ambitions about a more positive future for the EU. To better tackle challenges in the future we need to radically rethink the way the EU works. As the level of government closest to citizens, city authorities are ready to be strategic partners on the path towards a stronger more democratic Europe”.