In April this year, the European Commission launched a public consultation to shape a new EU Agenda for Cities, a forward-looking framework to strengthen the EU’s role in supporting urban development. This initiative, announced in President von der Leyen’s mission letter to Executive Vice-President Fitto, aims to align EU policies with urban priorities across areas such as housing, climate action, mobility, digitalisation, inclusion, and economic competitiveness.
Recognising the key role of cities, which are home to 75% of the EU population, the agenda seeks to improve coordination, streamline existing tools, and provide more targeted support, particularly for smaller municipalities with limited capacity. It also promotes stronger multi-level governance, enabling cities to contribute more directly to EU policymaking.
The City Diplomacy Lab welcomes this timely process and has submitted the following contribution, highlighting the social, environmental, economic, and cultural need to make international engagement more accessible for all cities, not just the largest or wealthiest.
The City Diplomacy Lab strongly supports the proposed EU Agenda for Cities, considering it essential, timely, and politically significant. The rationale outlined in the Call for Evidence is robust and well-founded. However, we believe an additional dimension merits emphasis, one that concerns not only the future of European cities but also the broader political trajectory of their states and of the Union itself. Beyond demographic and functionalist arguments, such as the growing urban population and the critical role of cities in implementing EU policy, the initiative responds to a deeper identity-related need. It arrives at a moment when more and more cities are being compelled to define their internationalization paths. These decisions carry far-reaching implications.
Cities today stand at the intersection of global disruption. Environmental, socio-economic, and cultural pressures converge with particular force in urban areas. Cities absorb the direct impacts of climate change, with severe consequences for infrastructure and public health. They bear the burden of economic instability and migration, which deepen inequality and strain services. They also confront mounting threats to cohesion as diversity becomes the target of transnational disinformation campaigns that fuel radicalization and polarization. As outlined in the City Diplomacy Labs policy brief “Cities at the Crossroads: Understanding and Navigating City Diplomacy Risk“, municipalities face growing exposure to foreign interference and industrial espionage. The sense of being vulnerable to external shocks can fuel civic withdrawal and populist narratives that cast internationalization as a danger rather than a source of opportunity.
Nevertheless, municipalities engaged in city diplomacy show how global-local interconnection can be used to enhance ambitions of resilient, equitable, and sustainable urban development, with positive effects on international cooperation. Seizing those opportunities requires more than vision; it requires the ability to navigate international partnerships in order to attract scarce resources such as knowledge, talent, and investment. Unsurprisingly, cities that succeed in this regard tend to be large or mid-sized, economically strong, and capable of mobilizing external expertise and strategic support.
Although it is often said that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, such balance is not the norm when it comes to the relationship between cities and internationalization. In practice, the vast majority of cities experience it not as a path they shape, but as a force they must endure. They lack the human and financial resources to actively manage their position in the regional and global arena. The political consequences are visible: rising anti-European populism and the election of local administrations with little incentive or capacity to reverse the dynamics that propelled them into power. This deepens a territorial divide between a handful of “global cities” and a much larger number of urban areas struggling or ceasing to engage internationally. The pattern is visible in electoral maps and in the marginal space often given to international affairs within national associations of municipalities, with some notable exceptions.
Reversing this imbalance is a significant challenge and one that local governments cannot meet alone. This is where the initiatives real value lies. By focusing on both capacity-building and access to information, it makes international engagement a viable option for a broader spectrum of cities. A city’s identity and prospects depend on how it navigates cross-national opportunities, flows, and risks. Enhancing their ability to access capacities, leverage assets, and turn them into context-specific policies will allow more and more cities to channel and fuel the values at the basis of the European project itself. The EU Agenda for Cities is a vital and strategic step in that direction.
Access the public consultation here.