site.btaLiving-in.EU Initiative Facilitates Cooperation Between Cities, Says Coordinator Gabriela Ruseva

The Living-in.EU initiative of the European Commission was presented during the European Digital Innovation Days in Local Self-Government conference in Plovdiv on Thursday.

Living-in.EU Coordinator Gabriela Ruseva noted that the initiative is among the European Commission's key ones, with focus on the digital transformation of different cities and regions. It is an initiative that does not provide financial assistance, but aims to present what the support mechanisms are. "We provide access to various tools, information and support of public administrations", she explained.

Living-in.EU has been launched in 2019 and is part of the Eurocities platform. Ruseva also added that the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions support the initiative, which is available to all cities and regions. "Each municipality can derive some kind of benefit or useful information, regardless of what stage of its digital transformation it is at. Our goal is to encourage all municipalities to cooperate and share strategies, to use existing solutions," she emphasized.

She presented the Eurocities platform as a network of cities in Europe, which unites over 200 large cities with a population of over 250,000 people. The platform's activities represent the interests of local authorities at the European level, as in most cases the European Commission communicates with member states at a ministerial or governmental level, and the interests of ministries or governments do not always match with those of local authorities, Ruseva said.

Secondly, the platform aims to facilitate cooperation between cities, making them work together and exchange good practices. "We are helping local administrations to build on their capacities," she noted. Ruseva added that the platform monitors all that is related to urban development, including economy, social policies, environment, culture, as well as digitalization.