You're listening to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on an urban agenda for the EU.

Towns and cities are home to nearly three quarters of the EU's population. This concentration

poses both challenges and opportunities which call for closer cooperation between the local and the European level.

This is the spirit of the urban agenda for the EU, designed to give towns and cities a greater say in EU policies.

Want to know more? Come and join us in this urban journey.

Urban areas lie at the very heart of modern society.

They're where the economy develops, where innovation happens, and where new jobs are

created.

They're also the main engines of our social and cultural development.

But there are also where problems are at their most visible.

Air pollution, transport, waste management, poverty and social exclusion.

This is why many voices have been calling for a shared vision of urban development,

giving cities a greater role in the design and rollout of EU policies that affect them.

So after decades of debate, in May 2016, the Dutch EU presidency led to the

successful signing of a political declaration, the Pact of Amsterdam, laying out the objectives

and key principles of the urban agenda. But how did we get there? Well, it's been a very long

process. According to the treaties, urban policy is not a competence of the EU, so urban questions

have always been discussed informally between ministers.

But gradually, ministers began to agree on a set of common objectives and values for urban areas

and how to reach them, and so the spark took hold.

In 2013, the Committee of the Regions called for the Commission to put forward a proposal for an integrated urban agenda to ensure the closer and earlier involvement of cities in the policy cycle.

In July 2014, the European Commission launched a public consultation, which revealed broad support among city stakeholders for an urban agenda for the EU.

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