Curing Europe of its schizophrenic attitude to cities

Date: 13/02/1997

EIGHT out of ten of us live in them, yet the Union currently makes no real provision for the special needs of Europe's cities.

Dr Bram Peper wants to change all that.

“We have a policy for Europe's regions, we have the structural funds to try to even up economic imbalances between member states, but we have no cities policy,” he complains.

Peper knows a great deal about European cities. He has been mayor of Rotterdam since 1982 and is president of 'Eurocities', a voluntary organisation which brings together representatives from 72 cities in continental Europe. Members come from 14 EU nations and ten other countries in central and eastern Europe (CEECs), the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states.

The organisation wants to see specific articles dealing with city policy inserted into the revised Maastricht Treaty which emerges from the current Intergovernmental Conference negotiations on Union reform.

“Europe's history has been made to a great extent in our cities. When people come to Europe, they tend to visit cities, so some sort of city policy ought to be included in the treaty,” argues Peper.

The Eurocities president does concede that certain tentative moves towards addressing the needs of cities have already been made, but he finds the pace of reform agonisingly sluggish.

“There is a committee within the Committee of the Regions (CoR) which deals with cities' needs, and Monika Wulf-Mathies has a certain competence for the area in her role as the Commissioner for regional policy, but things are moving very slowly,” he complains.

Peper points to a steady process of 'suburbanisation' amongst influential members of European society in the post-war years as the main reason for what he sees as the low priority currently being given to cities on the majority of policy-makers' agendas.

He claims that as the Union's member states have become steadily more affluent, the wealthier members of society and the middle classes - the decision-makers - have tended to migrate from inner cities to so-called 'green-belt' areas around the great population centres.

“Those people are the ones with the power and the make-up of many national administrations reflects that. Look at Germany, for example. There the Länder are very powerful, so people do not talk about the problems of the cities but about relations between Bavaria and North-Rhine Westphalia. In terms of political power, cities are very weak. Governments only tend to act when there is severe unrest in urban centres,” he says.

Peper claims the whole situation is made even more confusing by an almost 'schizophrenic' attitude towards cities on the part of the wealthy green-belt dwellers.

“Most people who live outside cities are to a very large extent urbanised even though they live in the countryside. Cities have this image of having become dangerous places where we do not feel safe to walk the streets, yet at the same time people want to visit them. They work in the cities and spend much of their leisure time there, going to restaurants or theatres or football grounds, for example,” he says.

Peper believes that the EU's current institutional set-up also reflects this imbalance of power and points to the fact that the Maastricht Treaty created a Committee of the Regions rather than a body to cater for the needs of cities.

He does not begrudge the CoR its status, but argues that policy makers will continue to ignore cities at their peril.

“It is vital that people start to take cities seriously because, with all due respect to the countryside, they are the real democratic, economic and cultural engines of Europe. Without living, vital cities, Europe will cease to exist,” he argues.

According to Peper, it is simply not enough to expect cities to fend for themselves. If we truly want to preserve them and encourage their regeneration, we must tackle the issues head on, he says.

“We want to avoid the American situation where some cities simply do not exist anymore. Around 60&percent; of the American population is now suburbanised,” he points out, arguing that this situation leads to the collapse of old inner city neighbourhoods with the all-too-familiar attendant problems of social deprivation, poverty and crime.

In short, he says, we need to ensure European cities do not become ghettos.

In order to counter this perceived threat to city life, Eurocities has come up with a raft of amendments which it would like to see the IGC put into the final text of the updated Maastricht Treaty.

“If a true 'judicial community' is to be developed which is focused on citizens and their rights and duties, we must not fail once again to take into account the issue of cities and local authorities,” states a Eurocities document which goes on to list 20 or so treaty articles which it considers should be modified.

One of the organisation's most basic aims is to have the name 'Committee of the Regions' changed to 'Committee of the Regions and Local Authorities' throughout the new treaty. It would also like to see a formal recognition of local government and the establishment of what it calls a 'European urban policy' to be included in the portfolio of a future European Commissioner.

Eurocities says this would entail the “active coordination of EU policies which already effect urban areas and the reflection of this in an explicit reference to the needs of these areas in the treaty”.

Peper also believes cities have a vital 'on the ground' role to play in furthering the aims of European integration and fulfilling the Commission's oft-stated aim of bringing Europe closer to its citizens.

“When you talk about a 'Europe of the Citizens' what does that really mean? You cannot reach citizens simply by producing clever television advertisements or slick videos,” he says.

The only way to convince people about the benefits of the EU is through local initiatives which show what Europe means to them in their daily life, he argues.

“One thing is clear. Europe is entering one of the most complicated phases of development it has ever faced and the identity of the European Union, its nations, regions and cities is our foremost cultural problem. If you want to convince people about the European idea, they have to see something real in their cities,” he insists.

Eurocities is already working, in conjunction with the Commission, on a variety of local initiatives which, in part, aim to put this European message across in pragmatic terms.

“We have projects dealing with job creation, drug addiction problems, social exclusion and a whole variety of issues which matter to real people in real cities,” says Peper, arguing such concretely targeted schemes are the surest way to create a real Citizens' Europe.

Eurocities is already looking ahead to the next enlargement of the Union, with several cities in central and eastern Europe already enjoying associate membership of the organisation.

“We immediately opened our doors to these cities. The mayor of Gdansk is president of our East-West committee, for example,” says Peper.

In addition, the organisation, in conjunction with the Commission's Tacis programme, operates a number of assistance programmes with local administrations in the CEECs.

“These cities are often starting from scratch as far as administration is concerned. We have to work on the most basic concepts, like 'what is real estate?',” explains Peper.

By way of conclusion, the Eurocities president points to his own country, the Netherlands, as a model for how any future European cities policy could develop.

“After almost 20 years of lobbying, we now have a recognised cities policy in the Netherlands. We simply do not have that much time on the European political stage. We have to address the needs of our cities now or the idea of the European Union will be eroded in people's minds,” he warns.