The first EU-China Mayors Forum, held in Brussels on 19-20 September, gathered more than 600 participants, including a 100-strong Chinese delegation: 28 European and Chinese Mayors, some representatives of 50 other cities/regions, and many more stakeholders and individual experts, for two days of exchanges on the challenges and opportunities for cooperation in sustainable urban development. 

The Mayors Forum is the flagship event of the EU-China Urbanisation Partnership, launched by President Barroso and Premier Wen in the preceding Summit of February 2012. The Partnership will offer a natural framework for concerted actions, such as a new programme designed to assist Chinese mayors, and the creation of this EU-China Urban Forum. The political initiative should also constitute a platform for Member States to leverage their existing and future actions in the field of urbanisation in China.

The EU-China Mayors Forum is a Summit-level deliverable: it was called into existence by Premier Wen and the EU leaders at the 14th Summit in Beijing in February 2012, was organised back-to-back with the 15th EU-China Summit in Brussels, and duly reported in the Joint Statement issued on the same occasion. It is major opportunity for EU interests: Vice-Minister Qiu stated that China is going to invest more than 10 trillion RMB (circa 1 trillion EUR) in green transport connecting smaller-size cities, in public welfare and social protection (including green social housing), in resilience of cities and disaster management. Renewable energy will play an important role in urban areas.  Half of the global volume of construction will take place in China in the next ten years, and cities with 1million+ inhabitants will be very common. MoHURD is planning more than 100 greenfield "satellite eco-cities" of more than 250.000 people each.

14 Chinese Mayors signed the "EU-China Mayors Charter" with an equivalent number of EU counterparts. This is a breakthrough that paves the way for more Chinese cities to join the Charter in the close future, among other things.

In the margins of the summit, Commissioner Piebalgs (who delivered the closing speech at the Mayors Forum) signed with MofCom Minister Chen Deming the Financial Agreement for the new EUR10-million "Europe-China Eco-Cities" EC-LINK project. At cruising speed, the EC LINK will provide apermanent secretariat and bilingual internet platform to sustain the exchanges of best practices and bilateral contacts initiated during the EU-China Mayors Forum.

Several Commission DGs (REGIO, RTD, MOVE, EAC), the Committee of Regions, the EESC, the European Parliament, think-tanks (Friends of Europe), EU-funded projects (EC2), the business community (European Chamber of Commerce in China, individual companies such as Danfoss, Véolia or Suez), industry associations such as Euroheat&Power, ….. joined forces with DG ENER to organise the two days of events.

download pictures [27 MB]

• Programme EU-China Mayors's Forum [2 MB]
• EU-China Mayors Charter (part one) [68 KB] All available translations.
• EU-China Mayors Charter (part two) [214 KB] All available translations.