The Fundació Catalunya Europa has launched the campaign "We build Europe from the municipality" aimed at Catalan municipalities to incorporate the figure of the councillor for European affairs into their municipal charters.

Coinciding with the beginning of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU and the constitution of the new municipal governments, the Catalunya Europa Foundation has sent a letter to the consistory to ask them to appoint a responsible for European affairs "in order to give more importance to cities in European decisions", since these have an increasing impact on the municipal level and the lives of citizens.

The letter has been sent to the mayors of a hundred municipalities, the four provincial governments of Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona and Lleida, and supramunicipal entities such as the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, the Catalan Association of Municipalities and the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia.

The initiative also calls on municipalities "to promote a genuine local European public debate where citizens feel more involved", at a key stage of European construction "which will have its central moment with the elections to the European Parliament on June 9, 2024 and that calls as never before to local authorities", says the letter signed by the president and the director of the Catalunya Europa Foundation, Airy Maragall and Dolors Camats, respectively.

The letter also recalls "the context of superimposed crises that we are living, and that has been faced in large part, thanks to a joint strategy at European level, with the leadership and direct aid of the European Union that have reached local level".

One request and six proposals

Currently, only a dozen Catalan municipalities have councillors or political leaders dedicated to European issues and about a hundred in Spain. For this reason, the Catalunya Europa Foundation wants to expand the number of euro-municipal governments, and accompanies its request to the municipalities with six proposals to connect local governments with the European institutions, and help them to promote citizen participation and be well informed about current European affairs.

Thus, future European municipalities are invited to join the European network BELC (Building Europe with Local Councillours) of more than 600 European cities, promoted by the European Parliament and promoted by the European Commission.

In addition, Fundació Catalunya Europa will create a network of local European decision-makers with the Catalan municipalities, and will organise a municipal conference on 18, 19 and 20 October in Barcelona on good European practices (in urban planning, environment, social and digital policies, or local governance), and also proposes that municipalities join the #JoProposoUE citizen participation campaign, jointly celebrating Europe Day on 9 May, and participate in the monthly online discussion series "Café Europa" dedicated to current European issues.