London Mayor Ken Livingstone has called on the European Union (EU) not to cut back funding for the UK capital when the EU expands into Eastern Europe.
At a conference on the future of EU funding for urban areas yesterday, Livingstone presented a declaration signed by 44 European mayors calling for the continuation of EU regional funding arrangements and a renewed emphasis on deprived urban areas.
The conference, Cities for Cohesion, was held in London’s Docklands and attended by mayors and city leaders from 250 European cities.
Presenting the declaration, Livingstone said: “London, like so many large European cities, suffers severe social and economic disparities between neighbourhoods with almost a quarter of the most deprived wards in England, despite the city’s high overall GDP.
“Such disparities in Europe’s major urban areas are obstacles to the economic and social cohesion of the European Union. They also threaten my and the European Union’s ambitions for a competitive, knowledge-based economy, linked to social justice and sustainable development.”
Enlargement of the EU will result in most of the EU’s Structural Funds going to the less well-off regions of central and Eastern Europe after 2006.
Livingstone does not oppose this but he is concerned that as a result London will inevitably see either a drastic reduction or the end of regeneration funding in favour of the EU’s most recent members.
The Mayor and other European Mayors will argue for some funding to remain targeted on the problems of urban areas.
Lord Rooker, minister of State for Housing, Planning and Regeneration, and Luciano Caveri, president of the European Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism Committee, were also present.
The UK Structural Fund allocation is around £100bn pa (London receives £90m of this). London’s ‘Objective 2’ funding is targeted on four areas: West London, the Upper Lee, Inner East and Outer Thames Gateway.
EGi News 09/07/02
