UAEU Roadmap to Ljubljana

Concept notes on the components of the working process

22.02.2021

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Índex

Intro ...... 3 Concept Note n.1 - UAEU Governance ...... 5 Concept Note n.2 - UAEU Priority Themes and Delivery Modes ...... 7 State of play and present partnerships ...... 7 Future Partnerships ...... 8 Current and New Themes ...... 10 Alternative types of Cooperation and Delivery Modes ...... 12 Concept Note n.3 - UAEU Policy Making and Implementation ...... 13 Operational bottlenecks ...... 13 Dedicated policy making and implementation vehicles ...... 14 Concept Note n.4 - UAEU external coherence, alignment and linkage ...... 16

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Intro

The Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU) was established under the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU, in May 2016. The Pact of Amsterdam lists 12 ‘priority themes’, based on which 12 Partnerships were formed during the Dutch, the Slovak (2016) and the Maltese (2017) Presidencies. Under the Estonian Presidency (2017), a survey among Member States provided a longlist of possible new themes, which were clustered into 12 main priority themes under the Bulgarian Presidency (2018). Eventually, two new Partnerships were established under the Austrian Presidency (2018) based on two themes proposed by the Commission.

In early 2020, the Commission presented an Assessment of the UAEU. Together with the endorsed New Leipzig Charter (NLC) & Implementation Document (ID), it reflects an important and consensual base for discussion among all of the UAEU stakeholders pertaining its further development and provides an important input to base the definition of the next phase of the UAEU on, supported through the European Urban Initiative (EUI), and thus also dependant on its final design and the timing of its implementation.

The protracted process of the post-2020 Cohesion Policy regulatory framework has positioned 2021 as the critical transition year for the UAEU, throughout which the stakeholders dialogue on addressing the shortcomings identified and proposing new ideas aimed at making it more effective and impactful in the future must be held, ultimately translating into a consensus on a renewed UAEU setup.

The Informal Ministerial Meeting in Ljubljana will represent the formal stage where this strategic agreement regarding the next phase of the UAEU will be adopted, opening the way to the continuation and capitalization of the combined multi-level and multi-stakeholder effort undertaken so far and to the prospect of establishing new Partnerships.

Prior to arriving at Ljubljana Ministerial meeting, a great amount of development work remains to be done. Recognizing the urgency of the matter, the current Trio of Presidencies set its focus on structuring the debate, consultation and validation to be achieved under the UAEU steering bodies - the Urban Development Group (UDG) and Directors-General for Urban Matters (DGUM) – so as to create the conditions for a necessarily conclusive compromise on the many open questions and critical issues surrounding the UAEU’s upcoming cycle.

Assuming its responsibility as the acting member of the Trio during the first semester of 2021, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU (PPEU) has strived to devise and foster a coherent and effective preparatory working process centred around the Urban Agenda Technical Preparatory Group (UATPG), while actively engaging, in line with the principles set forth in the Pact of Amsterdam, all the relevant UAEU stakeholders.

This working process, anchored by four components, aims to develop a solid deliberative process:

• By strengthening the steering capacity of the UDG/DGUM through structured debates and consultations based on well-founded options on the key issues as defined by the New Leipzig Charter’s Implementation Document;

• By shaping the future UAEU through a multilevel and co-creative process in itself, from which lessons can be learnt and applied;

• By securing from the outset effective linkages and matching conditions for funding and technical support both under the EUI and other programs.

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Besides the TRIO proposal for the roadmap to Ljubljana, the following Concept Notes are the PPEU’s preliminary content driven contribution to the launching and framing of this working process and working groups, structured by four components:

 UAEU governance;

 UAEU priority themes and delivery modes;

 UAEU policy making and implementation;

 UAEU external coherence, alignment and linkages.

Whereas the PPEU’s authorship of the Concept Notes is relevant, for sake of the clarity of their positioning and in order to welcome constructive scrutiny from the UATPG members they are intended for, they openly and extensively draw on the many analytical inputs and commitments provided thus far on the UAEU’s past, present and future, and specifically on the aforementioned Assessment, ID, and on the discussion paper submitted by Trio for the last UATPG.

The Concept Note’s pertinence thus derives from the imperative of organizing the working process around the set of four components advanced thereof. Each one was in turn organized around key issues of attention on which the PPEU produced some brief reflections, aiming to emphasize the relevant inputs and provide sufficient context to the related questioning subsequently laid out.

It is our expectation that they will allow for the active Working Group members to both understand and focus on the proposed set of subjects they will be requested to dive into, elaborate on and respond to, and at the same time award all the stakeholders a wide perspective on the scope of issues that the working process should attempt to address.

However, they should also be viewed and used from the outset as draft working documents, therefore neither exhaustive nor prescriptive, destined to serve as a necessary, yet provisory expedient to the incremental, intensive and substantive working process underlying the collective and co-creative renewal of the UAEU.

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Concept Note n.1 - UAEU Governance

The ID reiterates the strategic principles of good governance that were collectively adopted by EU urban policy stakeholders, adding that they provide a framework guiding post-2020 urban policy coordination in Europe, and the strengthened urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in specific.

The UAEU adopted during the Dutch Presidency in 2016, has since realised the multi-level, multi- stakeholder approach to EU urban policy coordination and co-development, manifesting those strategic principles in practice, and revealing the opportunity and collective benefit of good governance.

Owing to its innovative nature and exploratory co-generation, already well into the 2014-2020 ESIF funding cycle, the UAEU was implemented in a precarious experimental context, which did not grant either the time or the resources for the maturing of its governance arrangements, often deemed by Thematic Partnerships (TP) as inefficient, opaque and failing to provide steering and ensure consequence to the cities strengthened voice in the EU urban policy debate.

The intergovernmental cooperation structures for urban matters are the platform where all relevant stakeholders jointly develop, discuss and govern the UAEU. They were adapted and augmented from an already existing configuration previous to the UAEU’s inception, so as to accommodate the mandate awarded by the Pact of Amsterdam and reflect its overarching principle of trilateral - Member States (MS), European Commission (COM), Cities - conception and support for actions.

Within this structure, there is a dynamic balance: MS, led by the acting Council Presidency, outweigh all remaining stakeholders, which functions as a safeguard for their national competence on urban matters, although they seldom act in unison; their position is limited by the COM’s funding stakeholder status, exercised as co-chair, which also translated into their direct operational supervision of the UAEU through the Technical Secretariat; and Cities representation is necessarily indirect and distributed between the CoR and the EUROCITIES and CEMR networks, while the MS indirectly represent their own cities.

It can be argued that this mandate and structure has functioned, even if some aspects should be equated, such as the European Parliament’s role, the representation of small and medium sized cities, the inclusion of TP coordinators in the structure or the invitation of UN or OECD representatives as observers.

The new ERDF Regulatory framework has introduced the European Urban Initiative (EUI), which will benefit from an overall financial envelope of 400M€, where the resolution of the underfunded condition thus far limiting the UAEU and its TP is apparently foreseen. The critical information regarding the amount earmarked for the UAEU by the COM, as well as the current state of play of the design of its strands and work streams, and most notably, the details of its operational and strategic governance arrangements has been withheld by the COM, despite the specific requests made by the PPEU.

What the PPEU does know, and can thus elaborate on, is that the EUI will be under indirect management, and that a call is being prepared to select the Entrusted Entity (EE) which will manage the EUI. This aspect of is of particular relevance for the UAEU’s governance, considering that the COM will shift from a position of direct operational management to an indirect management, raising the need to clarify what (if any) role the EE will assume in the UAEU governance structures.

When looking forward into the UAEU’s future, the ID mentions that the MS – led by the Council’s acting Presidency - and COM will jointly conduct ex-ante assessments, prepare the relevant calls for Partnerships, monitor progress, and capitalise on the experience and results in a transparent manner. The inherent coordination between the UAEU governance structure and the EUI framework has to be developed through a regular and active dialogue between Presidencies, the COM and the EE.

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Furthermore, even if maintaining some flexible ad-hoc components, the UAEU will need to adopt some kind of programmatic approach to its rollout, extending through several Presidencies, and even Trios. Establishing a pre-set UAEU operational program cycle, aligned with the Trio Programs, would reinforce the coherence and continuity of the UAEU implementation, while clarifying roles and responsibilities for Presidencies, governance and support structures to assume.

Finally, the growing volume, diversity and complexity of technical tasks, both associated with the support to the UAEU implementation, to the UATPG and to Presidencies will require a demanding profile and a wider mandate for the UAEU’s Technical Secretariat.

Adequate rules of governance procedure will need to be elaborated by MS and the COM jointly regarding:

 The allocation of resources to the UAEU;

 The specific cycle and programming of activities;

 The ex-ante assessments and TP calls;

 The initiative and development of other delivery formats;

 The TP follow-up and action plan approval;

 The monitoring and reporting;

 The review protocols, including the renovation/transition of the operational program cycle.

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Concept Note n.2 - UAEU Priority Themes and Delivery Modes

State of play and present partnerships

The first and most pressing aspect associated with the delivery of the UAEU is linked to its current state of play. By now, the official duration of most Thematic Partnerships (TP) has come to an end. All 14 Partnerships have presented their Action Plans and have been striving to conclude its implementation. Considering the 114 actions foreseen, 49 were finalised, 23 are advanced, and 16 are half way. 22 actions remain at an initial stage, while 3 are still under planning.

Some TP have decided to continue in operation, albeit with limited, targeted, support from the Technical Secretariat (TS). 8 TP expressed their willingness to continue their implementation activities, two of which have requested developing new actions, extending throughout 2021, for which a specific proposal process was devised already accounting for the possibility of changing the TP composition.

Concern has also been expressed by TP coordinators regarding the precarious context they face, considering that the TS will cease its operation in the second half of 2021, and thus prior to an alternative support structure beginning operation, raising the need for a transitional approach for this hiatus.

Irrespective of contingency, the present TP’s prolongation (including those which have not yet expressed willingness to continue) in the future UAEU configuration must be put into perspective. The ID mentions the continuation of support for the implementation of actions. As an alternative to continuing the thematic approach, the assessment broaches a more integrated working group-based method between core TP members to promote synergetic implementation. The ID supports such an approach by mentioning thematic clustering.

Key questions to address:  What should be the purpose(s) of the present TP’s prolongation? o Extending time and support for the implementation of planned actions to conclude? Reassessing/reformulating the planned actions currently deemed unfeasible? o Allowing for the discrete ad-hoc proposal of new actions, eventually through the inclusion of new TP members for action leadership? (such as is being currently tested) o Considering a comprehensive thematic refocus of TP, and restarting the Action Planning approach, including TP recomposition?  What should be the format(s) of the present TP’s prolongation? o Maintaining the original thematic format, only with extended time and support? o Adopting the new thematic format, with TP recomposition and amendment of action plans?

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o Exploring the transversal/integrated/clustered Working Group based method? o Attributing a specific status to core TP member based lobbying/policy advocacy groups (thematic or clustered) in EU policy and funding prospective (Fit for Future, TIA, etc.)  What should be the process to determine the potential prolongation of the present TP? o Undergoing a global transitional assessment of present TP according to the options agreed on, and inviting all present TP to adhere to the solutions laid out thereof? o Establishing the options available for TP prolongation, and inviting present TP to apply (individually or in coordination) in a dedicated call?  Should the present Partnerships be involved in the process of creating new Partnerships – and if so, how?

Future Partnerships

The ID reaffirms that multi-level and multi-stakeholder TP remain the key delivery mode of the UAEU, suggesting a more flexible setup in terms of their duration, composition, and outputs within a more targeted, balanced and transparent framework. Still, the Assessment does not depict the intensive rollout of the successive thematic waves of the original TP as inflexible, even acknowledging an intentional departure from the quasi-nomination of partners in the early waves towards a more thorough criterium based call for interested partners, which also derived in larger TP.

This adaptive approach is justified by the experimental nature of the UAEU, a blanket argument which can also be invoked to explain the lack of baseline clarity of setup, operational procedures and overall objectivity perceived by the core active members of TP. Although the principle of experimentation is somewhat inherent to the multi-level, multi-stakeholder policy innovation approach embedded in the Pact of Amsterdam, upon a second phase of the UAEU design, some degree of consolidation and reflexive continuity is expected to manifest in the new TP ex-ante assessments introduced in the ID.

As for the balance of the TP composition, the criteria and method used for selection seem to have managed to include all the relevant types of stakeholders, reach the adequate EU sectors and ensure a varied territorial distribution, despite some claims of underrepresentation of small and medium sized cities and regional bodies and a quoted mismatch between the specific thematic needs of the TP and the generic urban development angles of policy represented.

Conversely, stakeholder engagement is the most contrasting aspect between the partners, to the point of arousing the concept of core, as in active, members, where the role of coordinators and action leaders emerges. And if it is clear that the transversely recognized resource constraints and opportunity costs played a significant part in the partners level of activity, other factors already singled out in the ID should also be pondered on, such as the level of thematic and procedural expertise required, as well as the motivation and understood benefit upon entry, which bred doubts in the relative positioning within the TP and the ensuing observer role that some MS Ministries and EU DG naturally assumed.

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Key questions to address:  How can the trade-off between flexibility (regarding duration/composition/outputs) and operational predictability be negotiated? (also in comparison to the Pact of Amsterdam)? o Should there be a general goal as to the (maximum) number of Partnerships? o Should an absolute time limit to TP operation be established (eg 3 years) or should the ad-hoc possibility of extending the operation beyond the initial timeline be in order? o Should different set durations be foreseen from the start (eg fastrack vs regular TP)? o Should the timeline of new TP be defined only for completion or should it reflect the distinct phases within its operation? o Should we establish an interval for the number of partners within a Partnership? o What should be the key partner selection criteria applied during the ex- ante assessments preparing the calls for Partnerships? Should they be ‘enforced’ and how? . Regarding the types of stakeholders, including a quota for different stakeholders? . Regarding their general profile (thematic/urban)? Should the coordinators profile be specifically addressed? . Regarding their thematic and procedural proficiency? . Regarding the level of declared commitment and resource engagement? o Should the TP pre-assign specific roles (apart from coordination and action leadership) to different partner types according to their profile (eg observation, outreach, review, etc.)? o Should the Action Planning matrix of TP be maintained? Can it be enhanced and how? o Should a discrete typology of outputs be defined beforehand? Should the proposal of additional or alternative outputs be possible during TP operation?  How should the process for carrying out these assessments look like regarding TP setup? o Should a structured assessment methodology and ensuing template be prepared? . Should TP setup component be independent from or a consequence of the thematic component? . What other components might the assessment analyse that relate to TP setup?

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o How can the input coming from MS, COM, cities and other stakeholders be coordinated? . Who will take up the overall coordination and redaction? . How should the inputs be gathered? . Should different types of stakeholders be requested to provide different types of inputs for TP setup? . How can consensus be achieved on mutually exclusive views? o Should a phased approach be adopted for TP setup? . A preliminary selection of coordinators? Should coordinators contribute to the selection of their partners? . Is there a perceived benefit to the selection MS Ministries, EU DG or umbrella entities prior to selecting urban and regional entities?

Current and New Themes

The extensive array of 14 Themes that have been precursory channel to the UAEU’s TP inception, setup and operation is widely regarded as one of its achievements and most notable trademarks, and functioned as the first resource of reference for the UAEU’s external alignment to date, as has been the case for the UIA or the urban related Horizon 2020 calls. They also garnered a broad acceptance from the TP members, which went so far as to convey the notion that they already serve to sufficiently cover the complexity of EU sustainable urban development policy concerns.

Such a comprehensive range was welcome, but each of the generic theme’s own composite makeup and depth raised the practical imperative of a subsequent thematic focus and scoping prior to the Action Planning, which in turn was also oriented towards the collective agenda and skillset of a prearranged TP configuration, and especially its core members, a process which encapsulated the TP pledge to the city-led bottom-up approach.

While the approach is one of the TP most celebrated achievements, the thematic scoping was in some manner a function of the TP configuration, with differing degrees of external validation, thus it cannot be assumed to have either portrayed the full nuance of the EU universe of any of the types of stakeholders represented in the TP, however valuable their sample, or definitely exhausted the theme.

Furthermore, the assessment observes that the limited engagement of some stakeholders such as MS and EU DG can be founded on their perceived distance between the more pragmatic city oriented perspective of TP Action Planning activities, and their own National and EU competence sphere, prone to more conceptual policy making concerns regarding fundamentals and sound legal and institutional frameworks.

Irrespective of the arguments refuting an early declaration of obsolescence of the UAEU’s 14 themes, the assessment also notes that they overlap and complement each other, opening the possibility of joint exploration, possibly with a renewed focus on under-operationalized cross-cutting issues. So far several attempts have been made to cluster actions between TP, inter alia by the 2019 Finnish Presidency (digital innovation in cities) and the 2020 Croatian Presidency (green infrastructures/re-use of buildings). The incoming Slovene Presidency has announced to continue the clustering of ‘green’ actions.

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Finally, the ID explicitly mentions new themes for TP or comparable multi-level instruments, in line with and providing input to EU policy priorities and initiatives, especially when these have a clear urban dimension, a link that the NLC itself strived to embed. This reference suggests that a more balanced middle ground between the bottom-up and the top-down approaches should come into play during the UAEU’s upcoming cycle.

Key questions to address:  What should be the process to determine future priority themes for the UAEU? o Should a structured thematic assessment methodology and ensuing template be prepared? . Should the thematic component precede and influence TP (or other delivery format) setup? . What should be the thematic assessment criteria behind more adhoc/ flexible multilevel delivery modes (vis-à-vis TP)? . What other components might the assessment analyse that relate to thematic definition? o Should the current 14 UAEU themes remain valid as for TP (or other delivery format)? . Should each theme’s individual validity be dependent on a substantiated new focus and scope? . Should this possibility be restricted to an integrated multi- theme approach? . Is thematic clustering of Partnerships’ actions helpful to determine the further course of action towards integration of current priority themes? . If so, who should perform this and what could be appropriate categories for further clustering? o How could the principles of the New Leipzig Charter be embedded in such a process? o How can the input coming from MS, the COM, cities and other stakeholders be coordinated? . Who will take up the overall coordination and redaction? . How should the inputs be gathered? . What are priority areas for the COM that might profit from (and provide input to) the future UAEU? . Should different types of stakeholders be requested to provide different types of inputs for the definition of the thematic scope? . How can consensus be achieved on mutually exclusive views?

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 What role should cross-cutting issues play in the assessment of new themes and/or validation of renewed/integrated approaches to current themes?  Should there be a general goal (or cap) associated to the number of new priority themes for the next UAEU period?

Alternative types of Cooperation and Delivery Modes

The ID stresses that other forms of multi-level and multi-stakeholder cooperation that contribute to sustainable urban development should be considered and further explored. This open aspect of the UAEU’s renewal is presented as a safeguard of the afore mentioned principle of experimentation, allowing context for the accommodation of unforeseen challenges or opportunities that might call for radical innovative approaches within the UAEU’s framework, entirely distinct from the TP (or integrated working groups) discussed so far.

However, the Pact of Amsterdam already advanced a very concrete pledge linked to the exploratory undertaking of tools and methods for better urban impact assessment of EU policies for urban authorities, which the assessment depicted as unaccomplished.

Key questions to address:  What should be the ad-hoc process to identify the need or assess the proposal of alternative multilevel, multi-stakeholder delivery modes? o What circumstances should frame the context to consider such delivery modes over TP? o Could their development be considered in abstract (without a concrete trigger)? o Could both approaches be pursued at the same time on the same theme?  Should the exploration of urban impact assessment tools and methods be renewed as an UAEU foreseen action? o If so, how could it be initiated/resumed? o Should it be in any form linked to the Territorial Impact Assessment methodology?

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Concept Note n.3 - UAEU Policy Making and Implementation

Operational bottlenecks

The UAEU’s emergence, which formally materialized during the 2016 Dutch Presidency through the Pact of Amsterdam, was inherently disconnected from the 2014-2020 ESIF long term cycle, which meant that its ensuing ambitious implementation in successive waves of TP had to grapple with a structural underfunding premise.

Despite the COM’s persistent efforts to ensure a basic financial sustenance for operation, which managed to gather the 4,5M€ mainly channelled into the Technical Secretariat (TS) support, thematic expertise and essential travel, each and all of the TP members had to devote a significant amount of own resources in their participation, conservatively estimated to yearly average around nearly 19K€. Moreover, the limited support extended to the implementation of planned actions burdened the core TP members further.

Still, the costs incurred by the core TP members were not self-described as outweighing the multiple benefits that stemmed from their active involvement in the TP coordination and action leadership, although it clearly comes across in the assessment that resource constraints played an important role on the lower engagement of most of the remaining partners, stifling the smaller cities, lagging regions and eastern MS the most.

The actual support provided by the TS under its limited mandate focused on administrative, organisational and logistic aspects of the TP functioning and was appreciated as qualified and valuable, as it freed TP members, and particularly coordinators for the intensive technical ground work necessary for each different phase of action planning and implementation. Thematic expertise was provided on an ad-hoc request basis, but TP coordinators felt the absence of a more continuous methodological support.

Overall communication was deemed problematic in all instances: within TP, between TP, with the TS, with the UAEU governing bodies and externally. This systemic lapse seems to have become a critical obstacle during the TP action planning, since it equally compromised coordination and complementarity between actions under distinct TP, collaborative cross fertilization for joint action, outreach to second circle cities and external stakeholders as well as feedback from the COM and the DGUM.

Lastly, TP members often expressed their frustration regarding the lack of baseline guidance: on the operational sequence of action planning and implementation, on the scoping and action planning methodologies, on the procedural aspects of financial support and thematic expertise and on the expected roles and responsibilities of both the TP as well as the managing and governing bodies, specifically related to the ownership of action implementation.

Key questions to address:  Considering that during this cycle the UAEU will have budget under the EUI, which should be the priorities for increased TP resource financing and support? o Methodological expertise?

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o Thematic expertise? o Legal expertise? o Partial HR costs? o T&A costs? o Materials and events for TP communication and outreach? o Direct implementation of planned actions (by TP action leader)?  Should the financial support to partners be targeted? If yes, how and to whom? o Through the eligibility criteria of certain types of expenses? o Through differentiated co-financing rates? o To benefit small and medium sized cities or lagging regions? o To accommodate the coordinators and action leaders increased commitment?  Based on the experiences with the current Technical Secretariat, what is a good balance of ‘technical’ versus ‘content’ support? o Should the TS assume the leadership in the implementation of some actions? o Should the TS assume overall communication planning and management? o Should the TS assume production of baseline guidance manuals, materials and delivery procedural capacity building actions? o Should the TS assume the coordination of support from BK and BF vehicles (eg BRI)? o Should the TS assume the external linkages to the EUI, URBACT et al?  How can cooperation and collaboration between Partnerships be structurally encouraged? o Through more frequent coordinators meetings? o Through TP cross fertilization events?

Dedicated policy making and implementation vehicles

The ID is clear in its message that the three key pillars laid out in the Pact of Amsterdam – Better Regulation, Better Funding and Better Knowledge (Base and Exchange) – continue to be instrumental. That affirmation is confirmed by the TP members, which agree that the pillars served as an adequate reference for the dimensions of urban policy action they set out to explore in their TP action plans.

The overall distributions of the 114 planned actions coming from the TP action plans would point to an unequal proportion of 2 to 1, where the Better Knowledge pillar would concentrate approximately half of the actions.

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However, a deeper look into their typological breakdown under each pillar would suggest that this proportion is even more significantly uneven, whereas only 5 actions for Better Regulation actually propose to foster legal EU regulatory framework changes, while the assessment points out even fewer anecdotal examples of the TP having produced an objective impact on the inception of the 2021-2027 funding arrangements.

Conversely, in stark contrast with this significant imbalance, the TP stakeholders refer to the Better Regulation and the Better Funding pillars as the most relevant and unique to the UAEU, since many other alternative sources of thematic policy knowledge sharing and transfer are available.

The assessment explains the TP tilt to Better Knowledge actions as an inevitability, representing both the circumstance of timing mismatch between TP duration and EU regulation and funding cycles, and the TP stakeholders admission that irrespective of timing, they do not detain the procedural knowledge of EU legal and programming practice, let alone wield the authoritative power, to exert a significant influence on the EU regulatory and funding frameworks.

In order to alter this perceived disenfranchisement, a pledge that the UAEU is funded on, the Dutch Urban Envoy, together with Europa decentraal EU law and policy institute, have developed the Better Regulation Initiative, based on the institute’s experience with the UAEU TP, proposing a systematic assessment and legal consulting framework for the current and future TP Better Regulation Actions.

Key questions to address:  Considering the ongoing initial quick scan phase of the BRI: o What inputs can be inferred from the experience performed so far? o How can the BRI be embedded as a dedicated vehicle of the future UAEU support to TP? o Can support extend from the current Better Regulation Actions to assist the TP the development phase of their action plans?  Considering UAEU strands/objectives grouping in line with the NLC ID – Achieving Better Regulation, Better Funding and Policy Coherence: o Could a similar approach to the BRI be developed and adopted for the Better Funding pillar? o What type of support could be entailed? (Legal? Procedural? Advocacy?) o What other factors or agents (apart from the EU funding regulatory framework) influence the urban policy funding solutions available to cities (eg EIB? Cohesion Policy MA?)

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Concept Note n.4 - UAEU external coherence, alignment and linkage

The assessment describes the UAEU’s external coherence in terms of its positioning relative to other EU urban related initiatives and programs as somewhat of an outlier, based on the assertion that its multi-level, multi-stakeholder cooperation method, especially in the pillars of Better Regulation and Better Funding, stands out as unique. This rationale can explain why the UAEU’s external coherence was not elected either as main focus or a goal in itself.

The TP stakeholders’ awareness of EU programmes and initiatives is also self-regarded as low, eventually stemming from the fragmented nature of the EU urban policy landscape, but comes in contrast with the COM having followed through on the Pact of Amsterdam’s foreseen action of mapping the policies and initiatives linked to the TP topics.

The absence of a coherent framework for EU urban policy might also explain the reverse external coherence attained by the UAEU following the COM alignment of the UIA thematic approach with the UAEU array of 14 themes, also manifest in some urban related applications of the Horizon 2020. Such an alignment turned out more challenging to establish with the URBACTIII Programme, mainly due a cited divergence between the URBACTIII planning and funding cycle and scheduling and the rollout of UAEU waves, but also related to the bottom-up process of thematic scoping inherent to the URBACT method, limiting top- down thematic alignment.

In either case (aligned or non-aligned programs), the operational linkages observed were scarce and non- systematic, but it should underlined that irrespective of their opportunistic inception, the UAEU derived examples of both an URBACT Action Planning Network and a UIA project serve to prove the concept of UAEU operational linkage, thus warranting further exploration.

URBACT is also mentioned in the assessment as overlapping with the UAEU, and although the nature (commonality, complementarity, conflict) and implications of that superimposition were not examined, the URBACTIII Program was involved in the TP setup, and contrary to other EU programs and initiatives, directly present in some TP, to the extent of assuming a coordination role, and also indirectly resorted to by a TP in the form of its network expert pool. TP stakeholder as well expressed stakeholders their inclination towards an UAEU-URBACT linkage that may extend further than the current URBACT knowledge and expertise contributions.

The ID explicitly mentions the involvement of external support structures – EU knowledge policy units, programmes and networks - as critical to the UAEU knowledge base, while URBACT and the EUI are called to support knowledge exchange as well as capacity and knowledge building. UAEU knowledge capitalization, and specifically dissemination outreach to second circle cities is linked to the EUI’s National Contact Points. These messages clearly convey the notion that the external linkage of the UAEU is fundamentally associated with knowledge production and management.

URBACT IV’s programming has already began equating the potential contributions of URBACT to the UAEU, pending the Programming Committees confirmation, while its strategic approach already includes the NLC as a reference. The EUI promises to reduce the EU urban policy landscape fragmentation within the DG Regio and Urban umbrella, already professing its potential knowledge interactions with the UAEU, namely through the Knowledge Sharing Platform, the National Contact Points and the Urban Development Network workstreams of its B strand, among others. However, the Urban Innovative Actions linkage will require further clarification.

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On a final note, there remains an active interest to liaise the UAEU with EU DG policy initiatives and programmes beyond DG Regio and Urban, building on their involvement in the TP, and going even further, with the UN’s New Urban Agenda and the OECD’s WPURB.

Key questions to address:  Should the UAEU’s external coherence be a focus/aim of the renewed UAEU? What type(s) of external coherence should be pursued? o Thematic alignment? o Stakeholder participation in the TP or other delivery vehicles? o Ad-hoc external contributions request? o Active operational linkage?  What are the most relevant timings of coherence promotion? o During TP thematic assessment? o During TP setup assessment calls? o During TP operation? o During TP action planning? . During TP action implementation? . After TP operation (dissemination, capitalization)?  What should be the priority object of external coherence? o Better knowledge? o Better regulation? o Better funding?  What types of external coherence should be attempted with URBACT? o URBACT knowledge and expertise? o URBACT capitalization activities (working groups, policy labs, seminars, publications)? o URBACT communication activities (Website/NUP)? o URBACT network activities (APN/TN)? o URBACT non-network capacity building activities(eg online courses)?  What types of external coherence should be attempted with the EUI? o EUI Strand A (UIA)? o EUI Strand B (KSP)? o EUI Strand B (NCP)? o EUI Strand B (UDN)? o EUI Strand B (other)?

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 What types of external support structures are more relevant for knowledge base coherence? o EU knowledge policy units? o EU knowledge programmes? o EU knowledge networks?  Should the UAEU pursue external coherence? o With the EU DG policy and programmes? o With the UN-Habitat? o With the OECD WPURB?

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