EUROCITIES was founded in 1986 by the mayors of six large cities: Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan and Rotterdam.

Today, this network brings together the local governments of over 140 of Europe's largest cities and over 45 partner cities, that between them govern 130 million citizens across 39 countries. 

Through six thematic forums, a wide range of working groups, projects, activities and events, it offers members a platform for sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas.

EUROCITIES influences and works with the EU institutions to respond to common issues that affect the day-to-day lives of Europeans.

The objective is to reinforce the important role that local governments should play in a multilevel governance structure. 

The strategic framework 2014-2020 identifies some of the challenges and opportunities in cities that are closely linked to developments at EU level. It sets out five focus areas to guide this work, which largely align with the EU's strategic priorities.

EUROCITIES Environment Forum meeting: Building Resilient Cities: from Challenges to Opportunities - Genoa, Italy - 3-5 April 2019

Our city  hosted the EEF meeting last April, where we had aimed to improve understanding of what challenges cities face and what it means to be a climate resilient city.

By assessing different resilience strategies from cities across Europe, participants have discuss, what aspects of these strategies can be transferred and replicated in other cities, as well as discussing possible barriers and solutions.

Deep-dive session has explore risk assessment, reflections on how to make the whole community resilient and techniques to create stakeholder partnerships to build resilience at the city level.

There also had a session dedicated to the key issue of including preservation of cultural and natural heritage in cities resilience strategies.