Cities, towns and villages are faced with increasing crises every day. Floods, forest fires, heat waves and droughts are multiplying, adding on to ongoing (and worsening) housing, economic and health crises. One of the buzzwords you cannot escape in Brussels currently is “resilience”, often accompanied by “preparedness”. But what does this mean?

According to the Oxford dictionary Resilience means “the ability of people or things to feel better quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.” or “the ability of a substance to return to its original shape after it has been bent, stretched, or pressed.”

For the places we live to be “resilient”, they need to be able to be nimble and bendy, to not break when pressed. With changes and catastrophes being thrown at them left and right, our local communities are the only ones who, from the ground up, have the knowledge of the places, people and structures that can prepare for and respond to crises. Now, more than ever, the EU needs to rely on community knowledge and wealth.

If the EU Institutions are serious about building resilience, they need to enable municipalities to play their part by:

• Looking at all the resources, making sure we use wisely our finite resources to count on them in times of crisis or scarcity
• Ensuring energy security by producing locally, fully moving away from Russian gas and any other dependencies on exterior energy sources
• Designing policies that are grounded in local communities’ realities, and can adapt to their shifting needs

These three points will inform Energy Cities’ 3 main priorities for the year.

Moving towards a resource agenda

Sufficiency was and will remain at the core of our action in 2025. We will also start looking at resilience, preparedness and adaptation from a human perspective: the social infrastructure – meaning the ties and communities – that will make us stronger faced with crises.

The main files we will look at here are the new Adaptation Strategy, the future of the EU budget, the Ambitious policy for Cities and the Affordable Housing Plan. We will also steer a new vision for the Covenant of Mayors more in line with this overarching resource agenda.

To inform our position on the Affordable Housing Plan, we will host a Mayors Club session during our Annual Forum in Besançon, to gather local elected representatives’ perspectives on the matter. We have also discussed the housing crisis with some of our members, do not miss our articles on this topic.

Ensuring energy security through local production

Here, we will continue to work on creating EU frameworks that empower local governments to play an active role in the energy system and progress in their heat decarbonisation strategies.

We are intent on getting the EU to create a “heat facility” to support cities in decarbonising heating and cooling. We will also push for additional resources and knowledge for cities to develop inclusive renewable energy projects together with their communities.

Key legislation we will be working to influence are the EU heat strategy, the Citizen Energy Package and the European Geothermal Action Plan, all planned to be published for the second half of the year.

To inform our advocacy activities on the Citizen Energy Package, we will host a Mayors Club session in Besançon, to gather local elected representatives’ perspectives on the matter. Find out more about it and how to join here.

New policy design adapted to the crises

Finally, but far from the least important, we will guide the EU in tackling all these crises at all levels of governance. Real multilevel governance needs to be at the heart of the EU’s understanding and vision to tackle present and future challenges.

This year is a pivotal one for the EU’s future, as the framework for the next EU multiannual budget is being defined. It is of course a top priority for us that this EU Budget is grounded in our local communities, through a place-based approach and a real, robust multilevel governance processes at the centre of it all.

The new EU policy design is the subject of our latest Paper with the Local Alliance:   A grounded EU budget: Investing in Europe, our local communities and citizens for a competitive, resilient and fair future

In 2025, we will work hard to shape a better EU public funding that supports local strategies towards resilience. And that supports an integrated, place-based approach, considering ALL resources.

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Fuente: ENERGY CITIES
Enlace a la noticia: A 2025 focused on resilience