Debate: Challenges for urban areas in the post-COVID- era
Date: MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2022
Speaker: Katalin Cseh
Country: Sweden
Language: EN

We have also seen them showing leadership in managing the crisis on the front lines, helping to limit the spread of the coronavirus and mitigating its impact on the ground. And when we all thought that things could not get any worse, they did, at least in Hungary. Prime Minister Orbán has used the coronavirus response effort just as a pretext to take funding away from cities and towns. And why? What is the reason? It’s very simple because many of them had the audacity to elect opposition mayors. A colleague of mine is deputy mayor in charge of development of Szeged, the third largest city in Hungary, and he very regularly tells me that the government does not give any access to meaningful documentation about EU development aid, let alone consult him about the needs of his constituents. And mayors all across Hungary tell us just the same. They are ringing the alarm bell that EU funds are used as a political weapon to starve independent institutions of their financial resources. Now, why am I telling you about these examples right now? Because I believe that engaging local stakeholders is the only guarantee to ensure this crisis relief reaches those communities who need it the most. In our report, we urge the Commission to make direct funding opportunities available to local and regional authorities and thus creating a powerful instrument that will enable the fight against political favouritism. And in light of the upcoming ECJ ruling about the application of the rule of law conditionality mechanism, I believe direct funding is more crucial than ever because cities should never have to pay the price of the wrongdoing of governments. They are not responsible for that. Renew Europe has been calling for directly accessible EU funding to be part of the conditionality mechanism since day one. Now it’s time to make it happen. While working on this report, my aim was to prepare a general set of recommendations, addressing some of the most serious challenges that the urban areas are expected to face in the post—COVID-19 era. And while lack of proper funding, I believe, is one of the biggest ones, the list is not exhaustive, so I am only going to mention a few other points. Let’s note that more than 75% of Europeans live in urban areas and thus face very specific urban challenges, such as the lack of affordable housing, the risk of social exclusion, the increasing climate—related disasters, the deepening digital divide and also the growing gender inequalities. Because in addition to health risks, women are more vulnerable to the economic risks that are also associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and they could find themselves further behind when the crisis ends. And while social distancing measures were necessary strategies to curb the spread of the virus, staying at home has put many women at risk of domestic violence, without an adequate network of support. And how could direct funding help cities to address this? They could use the money to support helplines for domestic violence victims or strengthen the care sector or support women to learn digital skills. Cities can help us face these challenges, but first, we need to rethink and reform our existing structures because neither the pandemic emergency nor the future threats will limit themselves to our legal boundaries. So let’s be brave, and let’s move forward.