Title
Session description
The Draghi report highlights Europe's competitiveness gap. The session aimed to explore how functional urban areas around the EU have traditionally fuelled their growth, using real city case studies, participants could hear three different approaches to illustrate how EU territories are tapping into the potential offered through a FUA approach. The keynote speaker from the World Bank focused on sharing the key messages from the Draghi Report on The Future of European Competitiveness. Participants were able to ask questions and share their views using a Slido poll.
Key insights
Following the keynote presentation by Marcel Ionescu‑Heroiu which emphasized the importance of having a vision, building partnerships, understanding and managing assets and how cities and regions need to be more financially astute, a series of three case studies were presented. The first case from Coimbra, Portugal illustrated how it was possible to collaborate across a FUA with a large number of municipalities. The importance of trust and a common vision for the region is key to improving overall competitiveness. A strong emphasis was placed on the important role that universities have to play in the competitiveness of a region and the need to build partnerships in order to deliver common projects. From Jiu Valley in Romania, a region in industrial transition, we heard about the importance of developing a clear vision that can be translated into concrete projects, the opportunities offered through different funding sources to address diverse needs and the important role that local stakeholders play in delivering projects in their own region. Finally we heard from the cross‑border Umeå‑Vaasa FUA, which launched a jointly funded shipping company to address a specific need but took this further to develop a broader common development strategy.
Key take aways
More than half of the participants were from a FUA in the session. The participants were asked several questions during the session to explore the role that the FUA plays in improving competitiveness and to understand better what the cities need from the European Union to support this growth.
The main takeaways from this session include:
- The most economically competitive areas of the EU are FUA
- Have a vision and think big – including across national boundaries
- Don’t underestimate the power of good data
- Innovative financial tools can support FUA with improving competitiveness
- FUA should not be considered only as an administrative unit but as a means to build strong and effective partnerships across all sectors
- Working together as a group of smaller municipalities can have more impact with decision makers, especially at national level
Conclusion
Participants concluded that FUA can increase competitiveness through actions linked to coordination of service (transport, housing, infrastructure), by attracting and promoting investment from local companies and by being more efficient with public resources through joint planning and service delivery.
In terms of follow-up participants expressed the need for support with:
- Integrated territorial and metropolitan governance
- Funding for business development and infrastructure
- Affordable housing strategies and spatial planning reforms to reduce inequality
There was a strong interest in continuing to support FUA with capacity building actions like City to-City exchange.
Inputs related to the EU agenda for cities
The first Slido poll revealed that FUAs enhance transport and housing coordination (71%), attract investment (68%), and optimize public investment (52%) according to the participants in the session. Through continued support and capacity building to improve local skills it will be possible to develop more competitive regions. There is a strong interest in promoting this topic widely. The related topics like transport and housing are also high priority.
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