Where national governments seem to be failing to meet people’s expectations, leading to a tide of anti-democratic sentiment, and a distrust of government, cities should be well placed to demonstrate a layer of transparency and ability to get things done – so contend mayors from across Europe.
The war in Ukraine, and the impact of the energy crisis, which will both heavily impact European cities throughout the coming months, were the subject of consecutive debates in the city of Prague this week, which took the opportunity of the Czech EU Presidency to invite mayors from other capital and big cities.
Pact of Free Cities
Since its launch in Budapest in 2019 by mayors Gergely Karácsony (Budapest), Matúš Vallo (Bratislava), Rafal Trzaskowski (Warsaw) and Zdeněk Hřib (Prague), the Pact of Free Cities has advocated for directly accessible EU-funding for cities and reached out to other like-minded mayors and cities to enhance cooperation, with the support of networks like Eurocities.
At its annual meeting this Monday in Prague, the focus was on rebuilding Ukrainian cities. As pointed out by Zdeněk Hřib, Mayor of Prague, “this is particularly important for the cities that now host Ukrainian refugees because there needs to be hope for those people that they will be able to return to their homes.”
He pointed out that there are two levels of this, “the first is immediate help. For example, we have donated 20 trams to the city of Kharkiv,” which uses very similar trams to those in Prague, meaning that maintenance is straightforward.
“At the same time,” continued the Mayor, “there needs to be a planning for the post war reconstruction process, which the cities must be involved in – both Ukrainian and other European cities because we hold the necessary know how to get things done.”
Of course, as the Mayor made clear, while the Pact of Free…