Eurocities

Eurocities is a network of large cities in Europe, established in 1986 by the mayors of six large cities: Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan, and Rotterdam. Today, Eurocities members include over 200 of Europe's major cities from 38 countries, which between them represent over 130 million people.

Eurocities is one of the major city networks in the EU. It is an example of how city diplomacy is seeking influence and prominence in the established world of international relations. At the EU level, Eurocities promotes the implementation of the European Union's subsidiarity principle. This offers multiple opportunities to engage and influence EU initiatives and policies, especially on urban development and more recently the European Green Deal. Eurocities is sometimes seen as an interest group more focused on re-establishing the power of the city over the nation-state, rather than connecting EU citizens across cities and borders. Recently, EU mayors of the network have tried to raise their global profile for their efforts to tackle climate change.