The European Investment Bank (EIB) together with the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) organised a high-level event to discuss the investment needs of cities across Europe with a view to informing the preparation of the Commission’s policy agenda for cities.
This joint event kicked off with the launch of the EIB Municipalities Survey 2024-2025 with new evidence on the investment needs from over 1,000 municipalities across the European Union. Analysis of the investment priorities, barriers and bottlenecks faced by local governments in cities and towns across the 27 Member States fed the discussions throughout the conference.
The event brought together policymakers from the EU, national and local level to discuss how to address cities’ investment needs with specific focus on affordable housing, sustainable urban development and climate neutrality. Participants had the opportunity to discuss and learn about the support available to cities in the current programming period 2021-27 and reflect on the needs for further support in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) post-2027. The event also provided a platform for sharing know-how and learning from concrete experiences and good practices from cities that use the support from EIB financial and advisory services to develop and implement urban investment programmes.
- 14:00 Welcoming remarks
Thomas Wobben, Director at the European Committee of the Regions
Ioannis Tsakiris, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (video message) - 14:10 – 14:40 Launch of the EIB Municipalities Report: Learning from the investment trends of cities across Europe
Debora Revoltella, Chief Economist, European Investment Bank - 14:40 – 14:45 Video message by Raffaele Fitto, EVP for Cohesion and Reforms
Debora Revoltella, Chief Economist, European Investment Bank - 14:45 – 15:45 Towards an ambitious EU policy agenda for cities: How to address the cities’ investment needs and harness their potential for innovation and climate neutrality?
Moderator: Elena Campelo Aubarell, Head of Urban Development Projects Division, European Investment Bank
Panelists: Marcos Ros Sempere, MEP and Chair of the European Urban Forum, Nicola de Michelis, Deputy Director General of DG REGIO, European Commission, Karen van Dantzig, Dutch Urban Envoy, The Netherlands, Anna Lisa Boni, Deputy Mayor, City of Bologna, Mar Jimenez, Commissioner for European Affairs, City of Barcelona and Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director of Centre for SMEs, Cities and Regions, OECD (tbc) - 16:15 – 16:20 Video message by Younous Omarjee, European Parliament Vice-President
- 16:20 – 17:20 Supporting strategic investments in cities: Leveraging support from the EU and national level together with EIB support for urban lending, blending and advisory support
Moderator: Gerry Muscat, Head of Division of Urban Development and Advisory, European Investment Bank
Panelists: Emilia Lodzińska, Deputy Mayor of Gdansk, Luka Korlaet, Deputy Mayor of Zagreb, Thomas Van Oppens, Deputy Mayor for Climate, Finance and Digitalisation, Leuven, Iva Petkova, Director of the Bulgarian Fund for sustainable urban development and Philippe Froissard, Head of Unit of Strategy, Policy Coordination and Urban Transitions, DG RTD, European Commission - 17:20 – 17:30 Concluding remarks
Tanguy Desrousseaux, Director on Housing, Cities and Regions, European Investment Bank
Thomas Wobben, Director, Committee of the Regions
EIB Municipalities Survey 2024-2025
The state of local infrastructure investment in Europe
