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Eurocities (usually styled EUROCITIES) is the network of major European cities.

The origins of EUROCITIES can be traced to a conference on ‘the city, the engine behind economic recovery’ held in Rotterdam in 1986, that brought together representatives of 11 big cities plus academics and industrialists to discuss their role in economic recovery. In 1989 Barcelona’s senior councillor, Jordi Borja, organised a major conference focused on ‘the role of cities in European construction’ as preparations for the single market and wider European integration gained momentum. Two European Commissioners and a vice-president of the European Parliament attended. By now, a central core of organising cities was emerging, namely the six ‘second’ cities of:


 * Barcelona, Spain
 * Birmingham, United Kingdom
 * Frankfurt, Germany
 * Lyon, France
 * Milan, Italy
 * Rotterdam, Netherlands

Four of these cities were already participating in a long-established multilateral relationship. The 1989 Barcelona conference agreed that a key task was to put the issue of cities and their economic, political and social development onto the European agenda. The conference gave the impetus to strengthen lobbying with the European Commission and on the 24th of October 1989 a delegation of European city politicians met with Commission President Jacques Delors and Commissioner for Regional Policy, Bruce Millan. This meeting formed the foundation on which the present EUROCITIES organization was built. In 2012 the EUROCITIES network has substantially expanded to include the local governments of more than 140 large cities in over 30 European countries.

Mission statement
'EUROCITIES is committed to working towards a common vision of a sustainable future in which all citizens can enjoy a good quality of life'.

In this framework, EUROCITIES aims at achieving a European context where cities can be inclusive, prosperous, creative, and sustainable, with democratic and effective governance, and where all citizens can be provided with opportunities for participation in all aspects of urban life - including political, cultural, social and economic aspects.

Strands of activities
EUROCITIES works along three complementary strands of activitiesin order to achieve its objectives:

Networking
EUROCITIES members take part in trans-national projects, research activities, policy seminars and workshops with regard to a wide range of urban issues and challenges. Cities learn from each other by sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences, comparing different approaches, testing innovative solutions and analysing best practices. These cooperative practices also provide a basis for the development of EUROCITIES policy positions and proposals.

Influencing
EUROCITIES provides a strong voice for cities in the European Union, and actively contributes to the development and implementation of relevant European policies, legislation and programmes. EUROCITIES is an important partner in dialogues with the European Commission, both on the political and on the technical level. EUROCITIES also maintains close contacts with the Committee of the Regions, the European Parliament and the Member States.

Visibility
EUROCITIES brings forward its policy priorities by developing Europe-wide campaigns on issues of common concern, such as sustainable mobility and responsible consumption. These campaigns are aimed at raising awareness and changing behaviour both within municipal authorities and also among citizens, whose active support and cooperation is often essential for achieving policy objectives, especially at the local level.

Structure
Through six thematic forums, various working groups, projects, activities and events, EUROCITIES offers its members a platform for knowledge-sharing and the exchange of ideas. The objective of the organizatin is to reinforce the role that local governments should play within a multilevel governance structure. It 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 a local level.

Thematic forums

 * 1) Cooperation: Cooperation between all levels of government and the EU institutions is essential to address the most important challenges Europe is facing. EUROCITIES develops a "territorial dialogue" at the European level, covering policies affecting local and regional governments.
 * 2) Culture: Culture is a source of inspiration and is influential in improving the quality of life of citizens, thus contributing to the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy. EUROCITIES believes that culture and creativity should be supported by public policies at all levels.
 * 3) Economic development: Economically successful and prosperous cities are essential for employment, cohesion and for strengthening Europe's competitiveness. EUROCITIES is committed to promoting sustainable urban economic development and works with the EU and the Member States to ensure that citizens have access to a wide range of high- quality services.
 * 4) Environment: Europe's cities are striving to provide their citizens with clean air, safe water, and a healthy habitat. EUROCITIES supports its member cities in their efforts to bring about a better environment and work towards achieving sustainable development.
 * 5) Knowledge society: EUROCITIES members are committed to ensuring that everyone can have access to ICTs and participate in the information and knowledge society.
 * 6) Mobility: The increasing amount of road traffic in urban areas leads to a wide range of problems – harming the environment and undermining citizens' health. EUROCITIES members are committed to promoting more sustainable and integrated urban transport systems.
 * 7) Social affairs: Europe's cities are engines of growth and prosperity, but at the same time they are the places where poverty and social exclusion are most problematic. EUROCITIES and its members are committed to tackling the causes of social exclusion, eradicating discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities for all.

Policy priorities
EUROCITIES advocates three priorities based on the three challenges of EU:

Climate
EUROCITIES launched a ‘declaration on climate change’ reiterating the crucial role of cities in tackling climate change. It has a Green Digital Charter which commits signatories to tackle climate change through the uptake of digital technologies, and to decrease the carbon footprint of ICTs in cities by 30%. The charter now boasts more than 20 signatories and is supported and promoted by the EUROCITIES-led Networking intelligent Cities for Energy Efficiency (NiCE) project. .

EUROCITIES is teamed up with other city networks in the ‘local government climate roadmap’.

Under this strand, priorities for 2012 are:


 * Climate mitigation & adaptation
 * Resource efficiency (20-20-20)
 * Environment
 * Urban

EUROCITIES will focus its work on the funding programmes for climate action and the environment, as well as the European energy efficiency directive and the EU air quality policy review.

Economy
EUROCITIES works with various actors to promote sustainable economic development and to ensure that all citizens have access to a wide range of high-quality services.

An important leverage for economic development of cities is the EU's cohesion policy. EUROCITIES argues for the creation of genuine partnerships in the next Multiannual Financial Framework. Partnerships involving directly elected governments, who must participate investment decisions in relation to structural funds. Several EUROCITIES' working groups tackle these issues, sharing good practices and influencing EU policies towards sustainable integrated economic development.

Economic priorities for 2012 Under this strand, priorities for 2012 are:


 * Cohesion
 * Innovation
 * Economic
 * Services
 * Competitiveness

EUROCITIES will press for the recognition of city authorities in the funding programmes for entrepreneurship and innovation, and follow the debates on services of general interest and public procurement.

Inclusion
Many people come to Europe’s cities for work. With the sheer numbers of people that live and work in cities, differences arise between neighborhoods. Cities actively work hard to reduce these differences through regeneration and social inclusion programmes or projects. EUROCITIES social affairs work is in part supported through funding received from the European Commission DG Employment Progress programme.

Supported by the European Commission, the nine cities involved in Cities for Active Inclusion network are working together to chart the opportunities and challenges to economic and social inclusion in different member states.

The EU-funded 'MIXITIES project' promotes the implementation of the 'Integrating Cities Charter'

Priorities for 2012 Under this strand, priorities for 2012 are:


 * Poverty & social inclusion
 * Employment
 * Education
 * Immigration, asylum, integration

EUROCITIES will support Cities for Active Inclusion network, take forward the Integrating Cities partnership with the Commission, and complete the MIXITIES project.

Projects
EUROCITIES is, directly and non directly, involved in numerous projects carried out on behalf and with the collaboration of its members.

Following is a list of these projects divided by forum ownership:

Cooperation

 * Urban Nexus: is an FP7 project that aims to enable knowledge transfer and dialogue to form long-lasting partnerships in and between cities and regions to deal with integrated sustainable urban development.

Environment

 * Cascade: is a networking and mutual learning project on local energy leadership. It supports cities in delivering the European Union 2020 targets for energy and climate change.
 * Covenant of Mayors: is a European Commission (DG ENER) initiative to go beyond the EU 2020 energy targets. By signing the ‘Covenant’, mayors of cities and local authorities commit themselves to developing a sustainable energy action plan which will set out the way to achieve their goals.
 * Urban Nexus: In common with Cooperation forum

Knowledge society

 * NiCE (Networking intelligent Cities for Energy Efficiency): aims to promote and advance implementation of the commitments of the Green Digital Charter (GDC) currently signed by more than 20 cities with a view to use ICT as an enabler to significantly reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
 * SMARTiP: aims to use open innovation initiatives to help 'smart citizens' co-produce innovative Internet-enabled public services within emerging ‘smart’ cities.

Mobility

 * ADVANCE: better planning, better cities Auditing and Certification Scheme to increase the quality of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans in Cities.
 * EPOMM (European Platform on Mobility Management): is an international partnership aiming to promote and further develop Mobility Management in Europe and fine tune the implementation of Mobility Management in the EU.
 * SEGMENT (SEGmented Marketing for ENergy efficient Transport): overall objective is to test the use of detailed market segmentation techniques in persuading people to change their behaviour and adopt more energy efficient forms of transport.
 * CIVITAS Vanguard (Advancing Sustainable Urban Transport in an Enlarged Europe through CIVITAS): is a proposed support action aimed at assisting the European Commission Directorate for Transport and Energy in coordinating the next, “CIVITAS-Plus” phase of its “CIVITAS Initiative” for cleaner and sustainable urban transport, as well as to assist in the dissemination of results of CIVITAS-Plus.
 * EPOMM-PLUS (Partners Learning Urban Sustainability EPOMM): is an IEE project aiming at the development of mobility management over Europe.

Social affairs

 * Cities for Active Inclusion (EUROCITIES-NLAO): is a dynamic network of nine European cities each establishing a Local Authority Observatory (LAO) within its administration. Their aim is to share information, promote mutual learning and carry out research on the implementation of the active inclusion strategies at the local level.
 * SHARE: the overall objective of the SHARE project is to build a European resettlement network of cities, municipalities and regions. The SHARE network is an integral part of the wider EU Resettlement Network, and facilitates the inclusion of local and regional actors in the network as new resettlement stakeholders.

Membership
EUROCITIES has four membership categories:


 * 1) Full member: Open to cities located in the member states of the European Union or the European Economic Area (EEA) with at least 250,000 inhabitants. Full members have the right to participate in any of the EUROCITIES forums and working groups.
 * 2) Associate member: Open to cities located outside of the European Union or the European Economic Area (EEA) with at least 250,000 inhabitants. Associate members have the right to participate in any of the EUROCITIES forums and working groups.
 * 3) Associated partner: Open to local authorities or organisations that are not eligible for full or associate membership. Associated partners have the right to participate in specific EUROCITIES forums and working groups.
 * 4) Associated business partner: Open to companies and businesses that wish to take part in EUROCITIES activities. Associated business partners have the right to participate in specific EUROCITIES forums and working groups.

Member list
A comprehensive list of all present members of EUROCITIES can be found at Member List