At the end of last year, the European Metropolitan Areas (EMA) Forum held its annual meeting on strengthening climate-neutral metropolitan areas. During this meeting, the political declaration “Promoting Climate Neutral Areas: green, smart and resilient” was presented, and today the City of Brno joined the declaration.
The declaration stresses the need to involve metropolitan areas and cities in the preparation and management of cohesion policy programmes while noting that Europe’s metropolitan areas are ready to implement metropolitan projects using funding from the European Recovery Plan.
The EMA Forum addressed the position of metropolitan areas within public administrations and their involvement in the preparation and management of cohesion policy, national recovery plans and green transformation. Metropolitan areas will have an important role to play in this regard and there is a need to call for greater advocacy and reflection of metropolitan issues in national and European decision-making.
The Declaration notes that metropolitan areas are creating ready-made projects based on an integrated, strategic approach. However, only a few metropolitan areas and cities have been given the opportunity to be fully involved in defining and designing national recovery plans. The Declaration, therefore, stresses the need to involve metropolitan areas and cities in the preparation and management of cohesion policy programmes. Representatives of metropolitan areas at the forum presented to the Commissioner for Cohesion Policy and Reforms, Elisa Ferreiro, a catalogue of transformative metropolitan projects to be funded by the national recovery plans. Among them is a project of the City of Brno building flood protection measures on the river Svratka.
The Declaration has already been signed by the cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bratislava, Brussels, Helsinki, Katowice, Lisbon, Lyon, Oslo, Porto, Toulouse, Vienna and Warsaw.
Brno’s accession to the Declaration “Promoting Climate Neutral Areas: Green, Smart and Resilient” was approved by the Brno City Council on 1 March 2022. The full text of the Declaration can be found here.
The EMA is a prestigious forum for key politicians and experts from major European metropolitan areas. The forum was established in 2015 and has become a platform for policy dialogue between metropolitan areas and cities, EU institutions and national governments.
