The EU Urban Agenda and Cities roles within the ESIFunds

This page will be about collecting information on how Structural and Investment funds are being allocated and spent across Europe. Initially I want to document how Cities are being allocated resources through Integrated Territorial Initiatives (ITIs). This allows for resources to be delegated down to lower tier authorities. The European Commission is encouraging this approach. It is falling on deaf ears in the UK Government but elsewhere in Europe national Government’s do seem interested.

EU Urban Agenda

What is driving this increased role for urban areas in the ESIF funds is the elusive but topical debate about having an EU Urban Agenda. This briefing note from the European Parliament summarises the current situation/ recent past (download here). (This has recently been updated February 2016) and shows the real progress being made. (Download here)

More recently (January 2016) the Dutch Presidency of the EU has stressed the role of the EU Urban Agenda and has launched a website specifically to highlight some of the actions and events to take place in the first half of 2016. This can be accessed here.

The following information is dated. Does anyone know if there is further research I can link to on this?

Poland

I saw an interesting presentation at Open Days 2013 on Poland’s approach. It is very strongly supporting the ITI approach – delegating down to functional urban areas. This presentation by Anna Baucz from March 2013 from the Polish Ministry of Regional Development outlines the approach – which allows the regions to set up ITIs under their Regional Operating Programmes and gives them an incentive to do this by allocating performance reserve resources to ITIs that are established by the regions.

Download here

Romania

This draft Partnership Agreement from the Romanian Government(October 2013) is promoting ITIs for Functional Urban areas (and also Community Led Local Development (CLLD) vehicles).

Download here

Czech Republic

The Czech republic is seeking to establish ITIs for the metropolitan areas around the following cities. Brno, Ostrava, Pilsen, the Pardubice-Hradec-Králové agglomeration, and the Ústí nad Labem-Chomutov agglomeration. Prague is designated a region and will have its own OP. Details in the draft Partnership agreement