Cluj-Napoca City Hall is currently working on preparing projects worth two billion euros in European funds to modernize the city, said Emil Boc, mayor of Cluj-Napoca, at EUROSFAT 2020, the largest European business forum in Romania, organized online this week, October 12-16.
Emil Boc identified the three main actions he would recommend to any city mayor: to identify the competitive advantages of the city, to promote the city with the identified advantages and to find alternative sources of financing the local budget for the modernization of the city.
“If I were mayor in any city in the world, I would try to identify, using also the help of other experts, the competitive advantages of my city. And, once I identify them, I will brand the city based on those advantages. I would say every day, in the morning, at noon, to every person, inside the town hall and outside the town hall, to every stakeholder, to every tourist that our city is good in those certain aspects. So, identify the competitive advantages of the city, brand the city and bring jobs in this regard. The second aspect would be money, of course. You can’t expect all the resources to be provided by the city, you need public-private partnerships to build. And we in Eastern Europe still have the advantage of European funds. If we are smart enough, we can modernize our cities using European funds. Europe is here, it is with us, it helps us a lot”, explained Emil Boc during the session “European local communities in transformation: innovation, multiculturalism, sustainable development”.
He added that in order to attract European funds, the proposed projects must follow the values promoted in Brussels: green, digital, resilient.
“Let’s stick to these concepts – green, digital, resilience – because it’s about quality of life. From this perspective, the money comes from Brussels, but the projects and plans have to come from us. If we have plans, we can succeed. For example, in Cluj-Napoca we have implemented projects worth over 200 million euros, and now we are implementing projects worth another 200 million euros. We are also currently preparing projects worth two billion euros. Try to use European money as an alternative source of investment to modernize the city. Because, unfortunately, our budget is not very big. Our investment budget is less than 100 million euros per year. But we doubled this budget using European funds. So here are my advices: identify the competitive advantages, promote the city with these advantages and bring money. And keep the money in the community as much as you can, this is very important”, Boc added.
About EUROSFAT
EUROSFAT is the largest annual European Affairs forum in Romania. Based on European values of democracy, civic involvement and open dialogue, the forum is an opportunity to discuss current issues at European, national and regional level. The event is organized by the EUROPULS Center of European Expertise.