24-05-2007

The main feature of the informal meeting of the Council of Ministers in Leipzig was the discussion of the Charter. The Leipzig Charter is a step towards an agenda for a ‘European large cities policy’. The Charter is an initiative of the German EU Presidency. By adopting the document, the EU recognizes the important social, cultural and economic role that cities play.

The Leipzig Charter is above all a political document. It does not contain any specific action points. Urban policy is a matter for national governments. The importance of the Leipzig Charter should not be underestimated, though. By adopting the Charter, the ministers have committed themselves to initiate a discussion in their own countries on how the urban dimension can be integrated into national, regional and local policy. Besides this, the importance of cities is politically emphasized at a European level. In future, the EU will take the consequences for cities into account more specifically in shaping its policy.

The Leipzig Charter builds on the urban agendas of previous EU presidencies, particularly the ‘Lille Action Programme’ (Lille, 2000), the ‘Urban Acquis’ (Rotterdam, 2004) and the ‘Bristol Accord’ (Bristol, 2005).

The European ministers also discussed the European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN). In Leipzig it was decided to end the successful pilot project phase in order to continue the network on a more permanent basis.  EUKN helps European urban policy professionals with specific knowledge in policy areas that are relevant to cities. The establishment of the network was an initiative of the Dutch EU Presidency in 2004. The Nicis Institute houses the secretariat for the EUKN.

The European urban agenda has developed in recent years. While the EU initially played a more observational role, its recommendations are now becoming more and more concrete.

The central message in the Leipzig Charter is the necessity of ‘integrated strategies and coordinated action’. What does this mean? Concretely, it means that, to achieve the objective of sustainable cities, different policy agendas must be implemented in a balanced way: social, economic and environmental objectives must be aimed at simultaneously. In the past, the Urban Acquis and the Bristol Accord stressed the importance of an integral approach.

The necessity of an integral approach imposes requirements on the institutional setting in which the (European) large cities policy is enacted. All levels of government – local, regional, national and European – have an interest in healthy cities and share the responsibility for the success of cities. 

The Leipzig Charter mentions areas on which urban policy should now focus in any event: 

The next two EU presidents – Portugal (second half of 2007) and Slovenia (first half of 2008) – have indicated their intention of keeping urban policy high on the agenda and making concrete proposals for implementing the recommendations in the Leipzig Charter. As it now appears, the Portugese Presidency will focus on coordinating European urban and territorial networks on the exchange of knowledge, learning and skills, in order to generate new knowledge. The Slovenian Presidency is currently generating ideas on how to concretely contribute to the implementation of the European urban agenda.