From European Green dream to local green deals

March 2024:  there are fewer than 100 days to go until the European elections. This is a special moment on the Brussels scene. It is time for the MEPs and Commissioners who are not running for re-election to pack up their things and take stock of the last 5 years. But most importantly, it is a time to put forward proposals for the next 5 years. The European Commission’s departments produce miles of briefings, which are then ‘sliced and diced’ between departments to produce possible “mission statements” for the next Commissioners.

In order to make sure that our voice is heard in the flood of proposals being sent to the Commission, we need to bring together all the stakeholders and structure an offer that cannot be refused, an offer that responds to the major challenges of the next legislature…

Everyone knows that it is always easier to talk about Europe’s industrial renewal than about environmental standards, or about rearmament rather than sufficiency that would strengthen our resilience. And yet it is crucial that the next 5 years be marked by the concrete implementation of the Green Deal across all regions.

For these elections, we have joined forces with all the European local government networks to propose a clear agenda that can be summed up in a single message: “Give us the means to achieve our ambitions”. It will be submitted to the Vice-President in charge of the Green Deal on 15 March, and our demands are simply the translation of the European Green Deal for the local level, as summarised in our last publication.

What does the Green Deal look like at the local level? This is the question we will be exploring at our annual conference in Valencia. The agenda for these two days will be drawn up with you, based on the expertise of our members, the challenges you have faced and can share with us, or those that lie ahead.

What would you like to showcase on 26 and 27 June?

• How are you mobilising the local economy?
• How do you plan to regreen cities and make them more resilient?
• How are you rethinking cities to reduce the need for resources (and therefore expenditure) and become more self-sufficient (water, energy & land)?

All Energy Cities members experience the transformation of a neighbourhood, street or city on a daily basis, and it is your stories that we want to hear.