Cities are key to Europe’s future, but the EU has always had a slightly uncertain relation to its urban centres. Ben Rogers discusses what a new European Parliament and European Commission could mean for Europe’s cities.

We might expect the connection between the European Union and its cities to be a close one. Urban life, after all, runs deep in European history and culture. Most of Europe’s cities were founded centuries ago and long predate nation states. And while much of the rest of the world has caught-up with Europe in terms of levels of urbanisation, it remains the case that between 40 per cent and 80 per cent of the EU population (depending on what measures you use) lives in urban areas.

Moreover, support for the EU tends to be stronger in Europe’s cities than more conservative rural regions. EU and city leaders have often found themselves pushing in the same direction in arguments with national governments – with cities for instance proving useful allies on EU integration, migration and climate change.

Yet it is not quite as simple as this. The EU was the creation of nation states and national governments still have huge influence over its development. Nations are represented through the European Commission, as well, of course, as on the European Council, while sub-national authorities have little formal status in EU law or institutions and the Committee of the Regions has comparatively little influence.

A failure to understand

Where the Biden government directed huge regeneration, recovery and climate-action budgets directly to US cities, equivalent EU funds have largely gone to member states. If Europe is a region of cities, it is also a region of villages and farms, and these loom large in Europe’s cultural and political imagination. Politicians talk of Europe’s “agricultural heartlands” but not of “urban heartlands”. The great majority of the EU’s budget used to go on the Common Agriculture Policy and even today about a third of it goes to farmers, who, as recent demonstrations have illustrated, remain a vocal and powerful force in European politics.

It’s true that in recent years, the EU has come to embrace what it labels its “urban agenda”. Indeed, the EU has become something of a champion of cities, on the good grounds that they are the most efficient, creative and sustainable form of human settlement. The New Leipzig Charter, published in 2020, set out a manifesto for sustainable urban development and regeneration and recovery, and climate funds have been directed to cities.

But urban interests have never quite found their home in the EU, with responsibility for cities splintered across EU commissions and offices. It’s become increasingly hard to keep up with the proliferation of EU sponsored city organisations and programmes. I attended a large EU cities conference last year, that included four adjacent stands, representing different urban initiatives. Nobody on the stands was able to explain to me how they related to each other. No surprise then, to hear mayors and their advocates complain about the failure of the EU to really understand and make the most of their cities.

Cities after the European elections

These complaints are likely to get louder over coming years. Green and left-wing parties, who tend to be cities’ natural allies, suffered heavily in the recent European Parliament elections – even if support for the far right was more patchy than many feared.

The new Parliament’s priorities are likely to shift away from EU expansion, climate action and urban renewal in favour of competitiveness, deregulation, a clampdown on migrants, and support for farmers and the “left behind”, predominantly rural and small-town, regions. With a Russian aggressor set on expanding into Europe, increased spending on defence is likely to eat into other budgets.

Organisations that support city agendas are hoping they can persuade the new Parliament and Commission of the central role that cities have to play in meeting EU priorities. And they are arguing for better representation of urban interests, perhaps in the form of a European Parliament sub-committee on urban affairs, a designated Vice President for urban affairs in the Commission, and renaming the European Committee of the Regions, the “Committee of Regions and Cities”.

But cities will need all their characteristic creativity and resilience in what is likely to be a less urban-friendly EU.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Dragos Asaftei / Shutterstock.com