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Candidate Eurocities executive committee

ROTTERDAM

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Rotterdam ExCom profile

Priorities Rotterdam is looking for your support to ensure its re-election to ExCom, where it hopes to prioritise putting cities at the heart of Europe’s COVID-19 response with a focus on innovative, green, and inclusive projects and building social resilience. The city wishes to build on its previous mandate where it prioritised transition, digitalisation, and social inclusion, putting them firmly on the European agenda. Rotterdam now wants to launch innovative, concrete projects that focus on key challenges in Europe, relating to the green transition, digitalisation, and the circular economy. The city’s mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, has stressed the need to move beyond “smart city” concepts and to invest in social and economic resilience to face future crises. Above all, the city wants to seek solutions that are unorthodox and underline the importance of cities in European resilience. In the current climate, this means putting cities at the heart of Coronavirus Recovery Instruments. Rotterdam wants to make cities a vital part of the process. It also means promoting the voice of cities at a European level. The city wants to push for an EU urban agenda to make sure that cities are not forgotten in future European initiatives, and to create an urban agenda group with representatives from cities, member states, members of the European Parliament and Commissioners. Rotterdam’s commitment to a strong voice for cities means they propose to form annual EU urban leadership summits so that EU, national and city leaders can define a common agenda and responsibilities. They hope this to be backed by a systematic involvement of cities in policy making on urban matters. Above all, Rotterdam wants to help cities across Europe create a common, safe future for all their citizens.

Involvement in the network Rotterdam is a founding member of Eurocities. The city sat on ExCom from 1991 to 2002 and was re- elected in 2014. During this time, the ’ second city has been involved in all but one of the Eurocities forums. It has participated in countless WGs including housing, migration and integration, smart and connected mobility and waste, to name just a few. Rotterdam has also been actively involved in several projects through the years, including SHARING CITIES.

Mayor profile Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb arrived in the Netherlands at age 15 from . After a career in journalism and public administration, he became the vice-mayor for from 2004 to 2007 and served as State Secretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment from 2007 to 2008. He became the mayor of Rotterdam in 2009 and has since focused on advocating the values enshrined in the Dutch Constitution: freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the principle of non-discrimination. A keen poetry fan and author of two books, Mayor Aboutaleb regularly takes neighbourhood strolls throughout Rotterdam to have talks with residents about their concerns.

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Biography of Mayor Aboutaleb

Ahmed Aboutaleb (born 1961 in Beni Sidel, Morocco) has been Mayor of Rotterdam since 2009.

Previously, he represented the PvdA (Labour Party) as State Secretary for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in the fourth Balkenende cabinet (2007-2008) and as vice-mayor in Amsterdam (2004-2007).

At the age of fifteen, Aboutaleb came to the Netherlands for family reunification. The family resided in The Hague, where Aboutaleb successfully attended Junior Technical School, Intermediate Technical School and Technical College, graduating in Telecommunications in 1987. Ahmed Aboutaleb is a poetry enthusiast.

In the mid-1980s, Aboutaleb started his career in journalism. He was a discussion leader for Radio Amsterdam and Radio Noord-Holland, and reported for Veronica Radio, NOS Radio and RTL News. In 1991, he moved to public services, holding positions within the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Culture, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS). In 1998, he became an administrator for the Forum Institute for multicultural development, and in 2002, he became director of the City of Amsterdam’s department of Social, Economic and Cultural Development (MEC).

Mayor Aboutaleb strongly advocates the values enshrined in the Dutch Constitution: freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the principle of non-discrimination. In his view, obtaining Dutch citizenship entails a responsibility to respect and upload those values and to take part in building the WE society. The more people take part in which, the stronger and more resilient that society will be, both in good and bad times. He regularly takes neighbourhood strolls throughout Rotterdam to have talks with residents about what concerns them.

In 2015, Aboutaleb published two books: an HJ Schoo Reading, titled De Roep van de Stad (“the City’s Call”), covering the leading role cities and urban regions can play at the national and international level, and his second book Droom & Daad (“Dream & Deed”), which was published for the History Week of the Collective Promotion of the Dutch Book Foundation (CPNB. In Droom en Daad, he tells a Rotterdam war story to present how to ensure a stable, peaceful society.

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