He was talking on the margins of an event marking the launch of a cross-party group within the European Parliament looking at existing and upcoming legislation from the perspective of cities and the costs entailed for local administrations. "We are engaged full-front in environment policy, public transport, fighting against congestion and pollution, all policies related to social inclusion – for instance how to integrate migrants – end up in cities," Mr van Aartsen said.

Also, in view of the upcoming talks related to EU's next multi-annual budget, he stressed the need for "clearer budget lines" and more focus on projects being developed by cities. As for concrete projects developed in the Hague, Mr van Aartsen said one district being completely renovated will be CO2-free within 10 years, while other districts used sea water or the warmth of the earth for heating apartment buildings.

These projects were "hardly EU-funded", however, with most of the subsidies coming from the Dutch government and the city itself. Paul Bevan, the secretary general of Eurocities, added that projects such as the ones developed in the Hague are "the future of cohesion policy."

"By combining social, environmental and economic measures, an area of the city regenerates in a comprehensive way. It's also about training, upskilling people – not just constructing buildings," he said.

The calls on the EU executive to redesign the priorities of regional funding come from a man who up until February 2009 was on the payroll of the European Commission, as special envoy for the Nabucco gas pipeline project. Mr van Aartsen, a former foreign minister, took up the job in 2006 and kept it for a year after being elected mayor, in March 2008. He recalled having "done a lot," especially in advancing negotiations with Turkey, the main transit country for the project connecting gas fields in Azerbaijan to central Europe, in a bid to lower the bloc's dependence on Russian gas. Since then, the commission has not appointed another special envoy. But former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer has taken up a similar job on behalf of the Nabucco consortium itself.