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This opinion is part of a wider process which aims at defining clear recommendations for the future of the European Green Deal from the point of view of local and regional authorities. More specifically this opinion looks at the implementation initiatives available at EU level for cities and regions in support of their Green Deal policies.
These initiatives vary from sector-specific initiatives to initiatives with a strong political commitment or more oriented towards providing supporting mechanisms. Often this multitude of initiatives fails to reach the local and regional authorities more in need.
The key objectives of this opinion are:
1) to clarify the needs of local and regional authorities for Green Deal implementation support;
2) to highlight shortcomings of the EU initiatives and provide recommendations for improvement;
3) to better link funding instruments and EU initiatives;

This opinion has triggered a fruitful discussion with the European Commission on the future of the initiatives and on how to increase their impact at the local and regional level. Many stakeholders have developed their own positions on this topic following the discussions with the CoR rapportuer providing a good amplification channel for the CoR messages. The topic of the opinion is also being discussed by the future Belgian presidency (Jan-June 2024) as a key topic to be addressed to foster Green Deal implementation on the ground.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS



- encourages a general shift in focus from EU debates on Green Deal policy objectives and planning processes towards implementing projects and prototyping pragmatic solutions on the ground;

- calls for dedicated learning environments based on the model of the URBACT communities to be set up in order to foster replication in as many cities and regions as possible;

- stresses that there is a need to develop long-term and structural synergies including vertical integration of the initiatives into national and regional supportive frameworks for local authorities;

- calls on the co-legislators to launch a new EU chapter on local and regional policies for the Green Deal, building on the experience of the Green Deal Going Local initiative of the Committee of the Regions and embedding its narrative and principles in all major EU funding and supporting programmes;

- emphasises the importance of monitoring outcomes in an integrated and smart way. These monitoring systems should be fully aligned with national requirements and should not create additional burdens to local and regional authorities;

- invites the European Commission to upscale the Covenant of Mayors by exploiting stronger synergies with other initiatives as well as to further support the EU Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities promoting a new multilevel governance framework;

- highlights that the request for political pledges needs to be better connected with implementation mechanisms and direct funding in order to ensure that the political commitment can be followed by consequent actions;

- considers the particular DNA of each region and city and suggests not trying to squeeze them into a "one size fits all" approach;

- calls on the European Commission to work towards a new shared visual identity for the Covenant of Mayors in order to clearly present it as an umbrella/framework initiative while ensuring consistency and harmonised language with all others initiatives;

- calls for the establishment of a single platform acting as an entry-point for local and regional authorities willing to be frontrunners in the implementation of the Green Deal.