Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions – More than funding: local and regional authorities mobilising public and private resources for an effective follow-up on the Clean Transition Dialogues on the ground
Date: 2025-07-02
Institutions: Commission for the Environment, Climate Change and Energy, European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: Just transition, circular economy, competitiveness, energy transition, financing, investment, multi-level governance, public-private partnership, reduction of gas emissions, regional and local authorities








C_202504413EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/4413


29.8.2025






Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions
More than funding: local and regional authorities mobilising public and private resources for an effective follow-up on the Clean Transition Dialogues on the ground
(C/2025/4413)














Rapporteur



:


Åsa Ågren WIKSTRÖM (SE/EPP), Regional Councillor, Region of Västerbotten





Reference document



:


Own political initiative opinion, RoP 41(b)(ii)









POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR)

Investing in sustainable, innovative and competitive regions and cities









1.


supports the EU’s ambition to reach climate neutrality, and to establish a target of 90 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2040, in line with the EU’s commitment under the Paris agreement; stresses that this is essential for long-term competitiveness as it will both give the EU a resilient and sustainable future, and develop an innovative, clean and competitive industry. Underlines that this requires flexible, transparent and realistic policy making and communication with all stakeholders;












2.


highlights the EU’s comprehensive climate and energy framework – from the European Green Deal, through the Clean Transition Dialogues, to the Clean Industrial Deal – as it promotes the mobilisation of private capital by providing attractive investment-friendly, long-term and stable regulations, giving a clear pathway to local and regional authorities as well as businesses, consumers and citizens;












3.


acknowledges that the Clean Transition Dialogues have been an important tool to transform the European Green Deal goals into more action-oriented policies with an industrial approach that will lead to a more competitive European industry, thereby developing new jobs at the local and regional level. This also confirms that it is important to further emphasise the role of local and regional authorities (LRAs) in the process;












4.


welcomes the Clean Industrial Deal, including the revision of the State aid framework, as a tool to accelerate the roll-out of renewable energy and industrial decarbonisation, creating the right conditions for companies to reach climate neutrality. This means ensuring easy access to affordable, sustainable and secure energy and critical raw materials, secure and sustainable supply chains, as well as taking into account that extraction and production respects both human rights and the environment, thus unlocking investments, creating lead markets for clean technologies, energy efficiency and circular economy solutions, as well as removing barriers in order for companies to thrive; calls for the European Commission to take into account, in safeguarding both security of supply and affordability, all available technologies that contribute to reaching the EU’s climate neutrality goals for 2050 in a cost-effective and more independent way;












5.


supports the Competitiveness Compass as an important tool to boost innovation and growth, and agrees that, in order to increase EU productivity, actions and policy changes must be taken to expand innovation, lower the regulatory burden, promote skills and endorse cutting-edge clean tech businesses that will pave the way to decarbonisation, climate resilience and lead to quality jobs, welfare and economic growth and at the same time acknowledge the need to develop non-toxic and circular products, while simultaneously preparing a roadmap to reduce resource use, in order to stay within planetary boundaries;












6.


welcomes the intentions of the Net Zero Industry Act to make it easier for European industry to attract investment and to improve the market for clean tech in the EU, thereby creating a more level playing-field for European industry, not least vis-a-vis China and the USA; also reiterates the need to upgrade the role of innovation throughout the EU, particularly by increasing public-private partnerships (PPP);












7.


highlights industry’s important role in driving decarbonisation and stresses that regulations shall lead to the protection of the environment and human rights while avoiding unintended consequences making it more difficult for industry to fulfil its potential; underlines that impactful efforts towards simplification and administrative burden reduction are vital for enhancing the EU’s competitiveness as well as simplification of administrative language in order to further attract investment, and help businesses and citizens make informed decisions with confidence; furthermore emphasises the critical need to scale up innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurships and technology transfer that facilitate co-creation, while ensuring that such innovation reaches market-readiness as swiftly as possible through public and private collaboration;












8.


advocates evidence-based decision-making, through strengthened planning and rigorous and reliable analyses, to address climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution through systematic transformation at all governance levels, and considers that this can go hand-in-hand with EU efforts to ensure energy security, create quality jobs, enhanced skills, and lower energy bills for households and companies;












9.


highlights the critical role of LRAs in accelerating the transition to a clean and resilient EU economy, recognising them as both key procurers of bio-based alternatives and pioneers of clean tech solutions; points out that LRAs can be drivers of clean energy production by promoting locally produced low carbon energy and increased energy independency, as well as by developing strong and strategic PPPs. The involvement of local and regional authorities is of the utmost importance in creating effective and sustainable governance models that facilitate decision-making resulting from the energy transition process, at the level of consumers, (energy) service providers, asset owners (energy investments) and their regulatory capacity;












10.


highlights that protectionism is an obstacle to development and growth, and that within the European Single Market local production chains should be facilitated by improving infrastructure, promoting innovation and enabling better collaboration between companies, ensuring a level playing-field and hence creating better conditions for local SMEs; it is equally important to fight fragmentation and remove barriers in order to boost competitiveness and facilitate decarbonisation in all its dimensions.





Multilevel governance with local and regional authorities as platforms for growth and transition









11.


calls on the European Commission to regularly include LRAs in transition dialogues, as most decarbonisation projects are implemented in cities and regions. This inclusion must also ensure the participation of rural and insular municipalities along with less densely populated regions suffering from demographic ageing, as they often lack the institutional visibility and technical capacity of metropolitan areas but are essential to achieving a balanced and inclusive clean transition;












12.


supports the approach of the EU mission on climate-neutral and smart cities (‘Cities Mission’), which involves LRAs, citizens, businesses, investors and national authorities; points out that this can become a cornerstone of EU competitiveness, as it brings a strong political commitment to ensuring that investment mobilises businesses, fuels European innovation and consolidates EU markets in sustainable transport, energy, infrastructure and waste management; also calls for the success of the EU missions to be leveraged, which requires an upgrade in co-financing for potential breakthrough measures;












13.


stresses the need to support LRAs in their efforts to take advantage of inventions created on a local scale and to enable them to create platforms to scale up small businesses into large-scale industries, when possible, while preserving the vital link between large and small businesses within productive value chains and acknowledges the importance of public platforms as incubators for innovation by providing good conditions and services to emerging businesses;












14.


highlights, in line with the Letta and Draghi reports, the importance of adopting a mindset geared towards renewable energy, increased R&D&I and effective use of digitalisation, and also underlines that LRAs can play an important role as platforms for industrial symbiosis where services of general interest, such as waste management, urban wastewater treatment, energy production and recovery etc., can form clusters for businesses in renewable energy production, the circular economy and decarbonisation;












15.


promotes the possibility of using municipal waste companies, combined heat and power plants with renewable sources or waste recovery, water supply and sewage treatment, and other services of general interests, as drivers of industrial symbiosis in collaboration with commercial investors, in order to create growth opportunities in cities and regions, while at the same time maintaining a high level of ambition and verifiable environmental criteria with respect to decarbonisation, resource efficiency, circularity, as well as high quality and affordable public services;












16.


underlines that the circular economy transition, including increased resource efficiency, is a strategic imperative for EU competitiveness, and stresses its inherently local and regional dimension; also calls for a substantial scaling-up of EU support to help cities and regions develop and implement systemic circular solutions, particularly through responsible public procurement and an extended producers responsibility system, in European environmental and circularity legislations, which clearly and unambiguously regulates the polluter pays principle, in order to foster circular innovation in materials, business models and infrastructure, ensuring that Europe remains at the forefront of the global transition;












17.


highlights the importance of systemic solutions and sees that local communities and regions can play a role in creating them by capitalising on the ability and the capacity to work between companies and the public sector, as well as citizens, and at the same time build up a skills resource; points out the importance of LRAs collaborating with businesses as well as with universities, technology centres, schools and vocational schools, to create eco-systems of skills development, innovation and businesses in clean and circular technology and energy systems, and stresses the need to stimulate students and young professionals in all types of regions, including rural, insular and sparsely populated regions, as well as less developed regions, to pursue a career in future industries in order to create quality jobs at all levels and qualifications;












18.


stresses the importance of multi-level governance and permanent multi-level energy and climate dialogues to the clean transition and for fostering shared planning procedures, as well as to economic development and growth, as well as well-being and promotes the use of regional development programmes as drivers and long-term plans to achieve effective collaboration between governmental levels.





Adequate funding is key for a successful transition









19.


supports the European Green Deal Investment Plan and sees the EU budget complemented with national contributions, as a back-bone of the clean transition; also acknowledges that several funds exist at EU level to support LRAs in the transition to climate neutrality, such as the EU’s cohesion policy, the European Social Fund, the Just Transition Fund, the Programme for Environment and Climate Action, the Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon Europe, etc;












20.


stresses the need for public costs and risks in connection with industrial development to be shared between LRAs, the Member States and the EU, corresponding to local and regional responsibility for the infrastructure needed for industrial expansion, such as roads, water supply, energy, housing and education and for other risks to be shared between public and private actors. With the accelerated deployment of new technologies and industries and increased international competition, risks also increase, creating a subsequent need to develop models to safeguard LRAs against the need to bear the public costs of failed industrial projects alone;












21.


calls for the Just Transition Fund with its specific focus to be fully integrated with the legal framework of the European cohesion policy post 2027 while broadening its scope to support regions that currently depend on fossil industries which need to transition towards future oriented, high quality jobs and to have sufficient resources given the emerging challenges;












22.


highlights that a key element for success in the transition is to address financing needs; in this regard, calls for EU funds to be easily accessible and directly targeted at LRAs, without excessive administrative burden, but at the same time without opening them up to fortune seekers and criminal use of public funding; calls for synergies between EU, national and regional/local funds to be further enhanced, and to address the funding bottlenecks experienced by LRAs that lack access to technical assistance and co-financing tools tailored to their need, and for overlaps and duplications between different programmes to be eliminated; also stresses that LRAs should be fully engaged in planning, designing and implementing those funds. EU funding should include possibilities for skills development that can be aligned with various industrial strengths and labour market needs in different regions;












23.


points out that there is an urgent need to better coordinate EU funding and to communicate it better, thereby helping LRAs, as well as industry, find the right information and resources more easily;












24.


stresses the need to improve collaboration between different funding sources at EU level, such as with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), international financial institutions and private banks; emphasises in particular the need for the EIB to strengthen its role in financing the green transition, ensuring that investments are consistently aligned with climate and environmental objectives;












25.


underscores the need to apply a long-term perspective to funding and financing, in line with the objective of climate neutrality, both at the EU and at Member State level, in order to create a predictable and stable environment for developing a competitive, innovative and circular industry in EU; suggests that the funding joint investment projects should be part of the broader discussion on financing the EU’s long-term budget post-2027 to this end;












26.


stresses the importance of keeping funds that support the transition of European industry towards a clean and decarbonised future, including in times of crises, in order to build an industry and economy in EU that is competitive, strong and independent from influences from authoritarian economies;












27.


calls for a strong cohesion policy in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) that supports a clean, just and competitive transition in all parts of the EU, bridges regional innovation gaps, reduces the fragmentation of funds, ensures access of SMEs in funding opportunities, and contributes to financing just transition strategies based on common integrated and strategic approaches, keeping local and regional aspects in mind; also calls for a strong bottom-up perspective and the involvement of LRAs throughout the entire process of forming the new MFF, creating a place-based approach for all relevant funds, including those supporting the EU’s industrial competitiveness and resilience. MFF should also prioritise investments in skills development and vocational training, especially in structurally disadvantaged regions in order to prevent deepening territorial disparities;












28.


calls for greater mobilisation of private investments in green projects by leveraging market-based mechanisms, providing attractive investment-friendly and stable regulations, and underscores the need to establish new mechanisms to mobilise substantial private investment. As the private sector is responsible for more than 80 % of GHG emissions in the EU, their role in the green transition along the whole value chain cannot be neglected;












29.


highlights the importance of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in the clean transition, and stresses the need for easily accessible funding opportunities for innovative businesses, with special attention to start-ups and scale-ups. Points out the importance to improve public-private R&D&I collaboration by creating well-designed partnerships between LRAs and entrepreneurs to increase private investments in emerging clean tech clusters, and sees that LRAs can play an important role in these collaborations;





More than funding









30.


highlights the importance of close collaboration between the public and private sectors, as well as with academia, local communities and citizens, in order to create thriving transition ecosystems of businesses, LRAs, education and inhabitants including innovation ecosystems where geographical dispersion and isolation along with lower population density and an ageing population, call for decentralised approaches and regionally tailored transition models; also points out the importance of bridging the significant gap between technical readiness and commercial viability while ensuring that innovations serves first community needs and climate goals;












31.


takes the view that infrastructure development, land use and the improvement of the capacity and flexibility of the electricity grid are all important factors for the development of clean tech and clean energy hubs, and that these factors have many different responsibilities that need to be coordinated between all governance levels, also in sparsely populated and isolated areas that often face capacity constraints in coordinating infrastructure planning across large geographic areas, in a way that supports industry and businesses in reaching climate neutrality;












32.


emphasises that a well-designed CO2 pricing system is crucial for boosting private and public sector investment in climate adaptation and mitigation as well as for generating additional revenue for use in climate action projects provided that it is ambitious, transparent and avoids loopholes, and underlines that the current carbon credit system still has significant challenges to overcome;












33.


insists that well-functioning local and regional self-governance is key to a prosperous EU where LRAs take responsibility for the transition but also for the development of their inhabitants and society, emphasising that LRAs are consequently a lead user of innovations in the public domain;












34.


stresses the key role of LRAs in public procurement and asks for the EU to ensure a framework for this, which allows for preferences for sustainable and locally sourced products and services and for social economy actors and SMEs to be included in public tenders, and also to avoid unnecessary additional strains on public budgets due to complicated procurement regulations;












35.


points out that regulations are important in order to protect nature and humans, secure public interest, as well as to avoid unfair business practices, but that, if they are not well designed, they could also lead to administrative burdens and unreasonable costs for LRAs as well as for businesses, especially SMEs. The EU and the Member States must therefore work to avoid this risk while striking the right balance with deregulation;












36.


highlights the importance of developing the competences and skills needed for the clean transition; in this connection, points out that there must be better links between universities, vocational training schools and businesses, and takes the view that LRAs can play an important role in facilitating this;












37.


points out that European values, including the commitment to uphold democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law, give the EU a competitive edge and ensuring citizens’ wellbeing, within the planetary boundaries, is key to attracting the right competences and thus to achieving thriving local and regional economies. LRAs must therefore continue to invest in their social capital, such as trust, local democracy and good living conditions, in order to be competitive and attractive living spaces on a global scale. Also, in this regard, highlights the horizontal principles that apply to European funds, such as gender equality, non-discrimination, social and environmental justice, democratic principles and climate considerations, as elements of quality compared to other economies;












38.


urges all LRAs to make use of the best practices available, where cities, municipalities and regions have successfully managed to create clean tech clusters, industrial symbioses, circular hubs and the local production of fossil-free fuels;












39.


reiterates the possibilities for the public sector and LRAs to create their own financing institutes to lower costs through shared risk and mutual guarantees, such as the Nordic municipal banks, similar agencies in France and the German KfW.





LRAs at the forefront in mobilising public-private partnerships









40.


recognises that, although investment will have to be financed largely by the private sector, the public sector plays an important role as a catalyst, and recognises that new business models for the industrial symbiosis must be formed in collaboration between the different governmental levels;












41.


highlights that the public sector, especially LRAs, can play a major role in building up multi-actor ecosystems by developing platforms and clusters for private and public actors and playing the important role of a PPP. All types of LRAs should be supported in forming these ecosystems, including LRAs in rural, insular and sparsely populated areas, given their strategic role in managing land, natural resources, decentralised energy solutions, as well as their potential to become new innovation and skills hubs for clean economy;












42.


calls on the European Commission to support LRAs in creating multi-actor ecosystems, and to make sustainability considerations an integral part of its financial policy in order to support the implementation of the European Green Deal. The EU’s sustainable finance toolbox, which not only supports companies with the highest sustainability records, but also companies with different starting points that have clear sustainability targets, is one important tool;












43.


highlights public-private R&D&I collaboration to improve both technology-based and nature-based advancements; points, in this connection, to the strong and successful regional participation in co-funded European Partnerships; and endorses industrial R&D&I efforts for products and systems with a positive carbon handprint;












44.


considers it essential to boost public-private and public-community partnerships to accelerate research, technological development, and system and organisational innovation;












45.


points to the need to align the EU’s industrial and climate policies, promote industry R&D&I investment, remove State-aid competition and foster open innovation through technology neutrality and strategic collaboration.






Brussels, 2 July 2025.


The President


of the European Committee of the Regions

Kata TÜTTŐ
               





ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/4413/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)