Teritoriālās kohēzijas politikas un ES budžeta komisija

Lielpilsētu reģioni un funkcionālās pilsētu teritorijas kā sociāli ekonomiskie virzītājspēki 2021.2027. gada kohēzijas politikas ietvaros

Opinion factsheet

Šajā lapā

  • Kohēzijas politika
  • Pilsētpolitika

Objective

The social and economic influence of metropolitan areas often goes beyond their administrative boundaries. To achieve territorial cohesion, functional approaches are needed that capture commuting flows and complex relationships between urban and rural areas. This own initiative opinion, put forward by the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget (COTER), explores the key areas of metropolitan regions and functional urban areas in the implementation of EU cohesion policy.

Essential points

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR)

- stresses the growing importance of functional urban areas (FUAs) in EU policies and reaffirms the need for strong urban and metropolitan strategies to tackle demographic change, green, digital and industrial transitions, social inequalities, the need for integration, affordable housing shortages, healthcare, mobility, air pollution and climate change;

- calls for a new urban agenda that encourages the aggregation of functional and metropolitan areas beyond individual municipalities and promotes greater attention to the concept of functional areas in strategic discussions at all levels of governance and within the EU institutions;

- recognises the importance of shared management programmes in providing regular and constant funding for cities and metropolitan areas and calls for an increase of the 8% minimum in the ERDF national allocation for urban development in order to ensure the necessary support also for new European priorities, including affordable housing and security;

- calls for the establishment of a minimum 5% ESF+ reserve for urban territorial strategies to address growing inequalities, poverty, and educational disparities within metropolitan areas, as well as to cope with the pressures of growing demographic challenges and ensure the satisfaction of the growing demand for services;

- calls on the European Commission to develop the future policy agenda for cities on the basis of the well-established territorial approaches and cooperation mechanisms of cohesion policy, strengthening dialogue with cities, metropolitan areas, functional urban areas and regions;

- in the framework of the mid-term review, encourages Member States to introduce in national shared management programmes, financial reserves for urban and metropolitan areas, aimed at supporting investments, in particular, in sectors involving sensitive issues (i.e. environment, housing and social inclusion) as suggested in the recent Commission proposal aimed at introducing ‘specific measures to address strategic challenges’.

Timeline