EU: network for sustainable knowledge economy

Established in 1986, Eurocities is the network of major European cities. It brings together the local authorities of 132 large cities in 34 European countries. Very active to create a “structured dialogue” with the European Commission, Eurocities under the new leadership of Gérard Collomb, Senator-Mayor of Lyon, elected as the new president on 24 last november, intends to strenghten its position in the context of today?s knowledge economy. Its next work programme emphasizes the need to raise citizen?s awareness about the social and environmental impacts of their own purchasing decisions. Education and training measures to spread the benefit of information technologies are seen as key priorities to support entrepreneur initiatives and innovation, but also social cohesion. More generally, the cities Eurocities members are advocating for better links with the European institutions in order to influence the EU political agenda. The forthcoming German EU presidency seems to respond to this move by giving to the European territorial dimension a special attention with the Leipzig spring seminar on this topic. www.eurocities.org