Stockholm: URBAN Futures (3/5-6/5, 2006)

Updated on vendredi, avril 21, 2006 at 22:19 by Huib Riethof, editor

...Keynote speakers: Jens Orback, minister of metropolitan affairs, Sweden; Mrs. Annika Billström, Mayor of Stockholm; Mrs. Elisabeth Helander, Director of DG REGIO, EU Commission. Other personalities: Mr. Rudolf Schicker, executive councillor, Vienna; Mr. Jean-Michel Daclin, Adjoint au Maire de Lyon, vice-president of Eurocities; Mr. Wim Deetman, Mayor of The Hague, chair of Eurocities Workgroup on Governance; Mrs. Ritt Bjerregaard, Lord-Mayor of Copenhagen; Mr. Jean-Marie Beaupuy, MEP, Chairman of EP Urban Intergroup; Pr. Michael Parkinson, EIUA, Un. of Liverpool; Pr. Jan Vranken, Un. of Antwerp; Mrs. Danuta Hübner , EU Commission Commissioner for Regional Policy.[...]

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Breakthrough in EU Commission's priorities in favour of Cities?

Currently, the European Commission is preparing a Communication on cohesion policy and cities. The Communication will be based both on the Commission’s working paper ‘Cohesion policy and cities: the urban contribution to growth and jobs in the regions’ and on stakeholder responses to this document. The document fully acknowledges the role of cities as engines of economic development in Europe's regions. [..] The European cities bear the brunt of the budget cuts decided upon in December 2005 at the Council budget discussions.

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Beyond the European Social Model?

The actual continuing attack on the European Social Model, which is mainly the apanage of France and Germany, with a series of smaller West-EU countries in their wake, joins a development that we see all day in the European deprived urban areas. Extra-market arrangements for popular housing, health care and unemployment allowances are being curtailed and made unaccessible. There are roughly three ways along which national and European authorities react to this crisis, which is, rightly or wrongly, linked to levels of unemployment and poverty:

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Diversity Within Unity Conference – Brussels, 26 April 2006

The Diversity Within Unity Project organises a conference on the theme of “Rights and responsibilities of immigrants and their new homelands”. Amongst others, British Minister of State for Immigration and Citizenship Tony McNulty, Danish Minster for Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs Rikke Hvilshoj, and sociologist Amitai Etzioni will participate. Purpose of the meeting is to explore the merits and challenges of the Diversity Within Unity approach and elaborate on its policy implications in Europe. Description Diversity Within Unity (DWU) aims to change the contours of the debate by positing an alternative to strict assimilation and unbounded multiculturalism. The meeting is organized by the Diversity Within Unity Project at George Washington University and Centre for European Policy Studies.

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