March 11, 2022

The following is a press release:

President Tzitzikostas calls on the EU to make use of existing region to region and city to city partnerships to provide concrete support to Ukrainian people and EU border regions

Apostolos Tzitzikostas, President of the European Committee of the Regions and Governor of Central Macedonia, participated the plenary session of the Conference on the Future of Europe on 11 March. In a speech in the session devoted to the 'EU and the world', he highlighted the response of regions and cities to the Ukrainian crisis and how this experience should inform the EU's approach to foreign policy and crisis management. He called for the EU to ''think diplomacy both globally and locally and to make use of existing region to region and city to city partnerships''. "A future EU foreign policy needs to look beyond the capitals and offer a special role and adequate resources to the regional and local level," he said, voicing his support for "increased strategic autonomy of the EU".

The full speech can be found below.

We all grow up in our home city or village. We go to our school there, see our family doctor, use local buses and apply for our first passport at the local administration. No one can imagine one's home attacked, burning, bombed and destroyed. And yet, it is happening. Here – in Europe. This war is killing children, It is bombarding maternity hospitals. It is vanishing people and their peaceful life in every local community of Ukraine.

Crises, like the war near our eastern borders, remind us that the European Union does not exist in a vacuum. Imagine we would have this terror in the symbolic city of Strasbourg. In the last weeks we have witnessed brave citizens and mayors staying behind with their people. Today, all across Europe, regions and cities are gathering food, medicine, and first-aid supplies, and are sending them to Ukraine, and to border regions of Poland and Romania that are providing help and shelter to the almost two million Ukrainians who have fled their country.

Like in the migration crisis, it is regional and local authorities in border regions that shoulder most of the immediate support. From Marseille, the twin sister of Odessa, President Muselier from Region Sud is channelling humanitarian aid by the "Convois pour l’Ukraine". The City of Gdańsk in Poland is raising funds to support Kyiv and Lviv hospitals, and my region, Central Macedonia in Greece, is providing medical supplies. While our efforts for Ukraine prove that we are united, regional and local authorities need to be better and concretely supported by the European Union.

We therefore call on the EU to think diplomacy both globally and locally, to make use of existing region to region and city-to-city partnerships. We are the ones who fill international cooperation with life. A future European foreign policy needs to look beyond the capitals and offer a special role and adequate resources to the regional and local level. We stand on the side of our Ukrainian partners. Because their fight is our fight for freedom and democracy in Europe. The time has come to move forward, for a common European defence and foreign policy, to not only protect our external borders, but to uphold what we all cherish most: freedom and democracy. For this, we support the citizens' panel calling for an increased strategic autonomy of the EU. The time to act is now.

Contact:

PresseCdR@cor.europa.eu