Debate on the European Year of Skills with – Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights – Dragos Pislaru MEP (RO/RE), Chair of the European Parliament’s EMPL committee – Jürgen Siebel, Executive Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training – Noelia Cantero, Director of the European Association of Regional & Local Authorities for Lifelong Learning 153rd plenary session of the European Committee of the Regions Brussels, 9 February 2022.

Presentation of Cllr Kieran McCarthy’s opinion on Small Urban Areas and the Just Transition, 152nd plenary session of the European Committee of the Regions Brussels, 1 December 2022

Urban areas with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants house around 66% of Europe’s urban dwellers and play an essential role in making the digital and green transitions happen. For this reason, in an opinion adopted by the European Committee of the Regions at the plenary session of 1 December, regional and local leaders demand targeted financial support for smaller urban areas to ensure a balanced territorial development.

Small urban areas are an important part of Europe’s territorial, social and economic fabric. They are centres for the provision of services of general interest and places with a good quality of life. About 70% of Europe’s population lives in urban areas, but about 66% of Europe’s urban dwellers reside in urban areas with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants.

Small urban areas can function as economic and social anchor-points for the wider regions, as well as ensuring a further cohesive European Union.

Lack of financial resources and relatively low institutional capacities in comparison with other places are just a few problems that small urban areas struggle with. The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the green and digital transitions and the integration of migrants, particularly as a result of the war in Ukraine, have brought further challenges to small urban areas, such as deserted town centres, online work, more spending on basic health services, growing demand for green-blue infrastructure and reduced municipal budgets. In order to improve the capacities of small urban areas and ensure a just green and digital transition, the European Committee of the Regions put forward a series of recommendations in the opinion “Small urban areas as key actors to manage a just transition” during its plenary session on 1 December.

CoR members stressed that EU funding must be secured for areas that face significant difficulties in achieving a just transition towards a green and digital economy, so that they can improve their situation and increase their chances of remaining attractive localities with a role to play in Europe’s settlement pattern. Furthermore, cities and regions urged the European Commission to put forward a communication campaign to highlight the impact of EU support in the daily lives of people living in small places and recommend to support small urban areas to find insights on how to tackle green, digital or demographic transition challenges.

The rapporteur Kieran McCarthy, member of the Cork City Council, said: “The EU provides cities with massive opportunities to embrace the green and digital transition. However, smaller urban areas are left behind. They have limited administrative capacity, means and knowledge to fully benefit from EU initiatives. Joining up the dots of the different synergies at play is therefore crucial to achieve a balanced territorial development and support small-size cities through a more targeted approach.“

Moreover, cities and regions highlighted the importance of smart village projects and the implementation of digital solutions to optimise connectivity, daily life and services in small urban areas, within the National Recovery and Resilience Plans, as well as the European Structural and Investment Funds. The implementation of the Just Transition Fund (JTF) should furthermore increase support for small urban areas, to help their municipalities and SMEs face the transition towards climate neutrality.

Finally, CoR members underlined that the EU can boost territorial development by promoting increased collaboration between urban and rural areas, overcoming obstacles that have divided them in the past. The principles “better funding, better regulations and better knowledge” of the Urban Agenda for the EU should also be applied in the implementation of the EU Rural Agenda in order to successfully support place-based innovation.

The New European Bauhaus initiative, which connects the European Green Deal to our daily lives and living spaces, is as a key opportunity to harness the creative potential of regions and municipalities, provide jobs locally and create accepted and sustainable solutions, the European Committee of the Regions believes.

The opinion drafted by Cork City Councillor Kieran McCarthy (IE/EA) points out, however, that this requires strong local and regional engagement, which is why the European Commission must ensure that cities and regions are at the centre of the initiative and receive technical assistance and appropriate funding. In this regard, the Commission has confirmed it is developing a voucher scheme as proposed in McCarthy’s opinion.

“The principal concerns of this opinion revolve around issues such as: what is the role of local and regional authorities? What financial resources are being put to this movement or programme? What are the planned indicators?” rapporteur Kieran McCarthy pointed out when presenting his opinion at the CoR plenary session on 27 April.

“The current call for local and regional authorities to get involved is welcome but lacks ambition. Sufficient resources from state budgets and EU cohesion policy programmes need to be allocated at local and regional level for New European Bauhaus”, he insisted, underlining also the need for a New European Bauhaus regional scoreboard to ensure that the initiative is implemented at all levels and supported by regional investments.

The opinion proposes a NEB Lab voucher scheme to help cities and regions co-create, prototype and test the tools, solutions and policy actions that will facilitate transformation on the ground. Michaela Magas, member of the EC’s high-level roundtable on the new European Bauhaus, confirmed the European Commission would work together with the CoR on launching 100 vouchers for Bauhaus LABs across EU regions. “I’m grateful for the idea proposed by CoR to model it on the successful Wifi4EU initiative”, Ms Magas said.

The European Commission is also asked to establish better links between the New European Bauhaus and existing conceptual, culture-related, aesthetics-oriented and design-oriented frameworks. This would translate principles into action and enable the initiative to harness the creative, cultural and cultural heritage potential of local and regional authorities to renovate and revitalize neighbourhoods across the EU.

“I believe that the New European Bauhaus must become a real movement which involves local and regional authorities and is not just another top-down project. It must be a project for everyone, not just the few. To be successful, this exercise must be socially, culturally and territorially inclusive”, Mr McCarthy summed up.

Read more about the New European Bauhaus here: About the initiative (europa.eu)

26 February 2022, “Independent Cork city councillor Kieran McCarthy has said he will be using his position on the European Committee of the Regions (COR) to lobby the European Commission and Parliament to issue humanitarian aid to Ukrainian people”, City Hall lights up in support of Ukraine,  City Hall lights up in support of Ukraine (echolive.ie)

9 January 2022, “Mr McCarthy said anything that helps tackle the issue of dereliction is welcome and a step in the right direction, but the ‘red tape’ issue of tackling dereliction needed to be addressed. “Dereliction is a deep rooted problem, and it will take a lot of effort [to] pull up those roots and I would plead with the Minister to work with Cork City Council [on the issue]”, Call for dereliction ‘red tape’ to be addressed ahead of introduction of new grant, Call for dereliction ‘red tape’ to be addressed ahead of introduction of new grant 

Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy, this month, led calls to French President Emmanuel Macron for more consultation with citizens on the future of the European Union

In the December European Committee of the Regions plenary session, Cllr McCarthy, member, used his two minute online debate slot with the President to call for more investment into small cities and in rural, mountain and island regions. In particular, he asked for less centralisation of budgets and decision making in the EU.

Cllr McCarthy thanked the French President for his support in the Brexit negotiation with the EU, adding that this has been particularly helpful in maintaining peace and ensuring no hard border on the island of Ireland.

Cllr McCarthy noted: “I hope we will make progress on areas, which need investment and sometimes areas that feel forgotten about especially our rural mountainous and island regions we need to really focus on smart inclusive development with a specific focus on those regions and the best way to do this is from the bottom up. From Cork to Corsica our citizens deserve to be heard. Ultimately if you empower the regions, the EU will be a success”.  

In recent months, Cllr McCarthy has strongly lobbied at EU level that local and regional authorities such as Cork City Council, who are on the forefront of the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic must be supported by EU Funds. He also raised the plight of SMEs in smaller European cities such as Cork and that any emergency EU funding released needs to get to the citizen on the actual ground and not be held up at central government level.

The European Committee of the Regions is a 329 person formal EU assembly of councillors, Mayor and Regional Presidents from over 270 regions in the EU.  

LISTEN to Kieran’s comments here: