EU enlargement is not sustainable without local ownership: 8 takeaways from CEMR webinar
Empowering local and regional governments will ensure that EU integration is felt, understood, and embraced by citizens, making enlargement not only a policy success but a democratic one. This is the main lesson learned from the CEMR webinar on Empowering Local Governments on the Road to EU Enlargement, organised in collaboration with PLATFORMA on 1st July.
Local leaders, EU officials, and representatives from candidate and EU member countries reaffirmed the essential role of local and regional governments in the EU enlargement process. They also discussed the capacity needs involved in this journey.
Here are the 8 key findings based on the webinar discussions, which witnessed that enlargement is not sustainable without local ownership.
1. Set local and regional governments as strategic actors in the EU accession process
- Involve local governments early and systematically in national accession plans, screenings, and cluster evaluations.
- Ensure local leaders are recognised not just as implementers, but as policy co-creators, especially in areas aligned with the EU acquis.
2. Strengthen multilevel governance structural dialogue
- Establish permanent coordination mechanisms between LRGs, national governments, and EU institutions.
- Move from consultation to co-creation platforms—especially during roadmap design, monitoring, and policy review phases.
3. Guarantee local access to EU funding mechanisms
- Ensure that a minimum percentage of EU financial assistance is directly allocated to local governments (e.g., in Ukraine, it is already 20%)
- Simplify procedures for municipalities to access EU funds and develop capacity-building programs to support their management.
4. Invest in capacity building and institutional continuity
- Develop sustained training for local officials, including in public procurement, project management and all locally implementing EU standards.
- Address gaps in institutional memory due to political turnover by investing in civil service professionalisation and knowledge transfer.
5. Support peer-to-peer learning and twinning initiatives
- Promote city-to-city cooperation between EU member states and candidate countries (decentralised cooperation)
- Expand twinning programs across thematic areas such as education, green transition, disaster resilience, and digital governance (if you need tools to find partners, use existing ones such as the CEMR Matchmaking Platform).
6. Promote inclusive participation and gender equity
- Encourage the participation of women leaders and marginalised communities in enlargement dialogues.
- Ensure that decentralisation and integration efforts incorporate diverse perspectives and address local inequalities.
7. Strengthen civic trust and communication
- Support local and regional governments in leading public communication campaigns that explain EU values and the benefits of enlargement.
- Equip municipalities to become trusted messengers of the EU to citizens, countering misinformation and building democratic resilience.
8. Leverage local and regional governments for reconstruction and sustainability goals
- In countries affected by war (e.g., Ukraine), prioritise local-led reconstruction and sustainable recovery as a path to integration.
- Align local development strategies with the Green Deal, digital transition, and social cohesion policies.
Context
Nine countries are officially on a path to join the European Union in the coming years: five in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), three in the Eastern neighbourhood (Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), and Turkey.