A few days ahead of the 17 June European Council, which is scheduled to approve the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy, the EU Committee of the Regions (CoR) continues to argue for the greater involvement of cities and regions. At its plenary session, on 10 June in Brussels, the committee unanimously adopted a resolution supporting stronger involvement of local and regional authorities in the 2020 strategy. The resolution was the initiative of the EPP group. Back in early June, the CoR had already written to the EU heads of state and government to draw their attention to its demands and to highlight the added value the cities and regions could provide towards meeting the economic and social development targets and the EU’s goals in education, climate change or the fight against poverty.

To strengthen the involvement of local authorities, the resolution proposes to develop a “territorial pact of local and regional authorities for Europe 2020”. The idea is to establish “true partnership” between the various levels of government with regard to the design and implementation of the key objectives and the flagship initiatives of the 2020 strategy. For the committee, this would notably require three-way discussions involving the CoR, the EU institutions and the member states as well as an ongoing evaluation of the local and regional communities’ needs and capacities.

The CoR believes that, without effective participation of cities and regions, the 2020 strategy will fail in the same way as the Lisbon objectives. The already existing Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform at the CoR could therefore be a good starting point, the resolution says.