European Cities for Sustainable Public Finances (in short CSPF) was officially launched on 26 June 2020 by the Cities of Amsterdam (NL), Bordeaux (FR), Barcelona (ES), Hamburg (DE), the City of London Corporation (UK), Milan (IT) and Trondheim (NO) and is hosted as a legal construction by KDZ - the Austrian Centre for Public Administration Research. It is a voluntary and informal network of major European cities that have created a high-level group of cities’ CEOs/CFOs and city managers to address economic, fiscal and financial management issues from a cross-border perspective at city level in Europe. This initiative is unique and timely as public sector financial practices are still fragmented within Europe and its individual countries.
CSPF unites larger European cities, representing currently a total of approx. 30 million inhabitants in their respective metropolitan areas. These cities aim towards a different way of doing politics – politics that are committed to quality management, sustainability and liquidity of public sector finances as guarantors of Europe’s economic competitiveness, its social policies and thus ultimately the wellbeing of their citizens.
CSPF receives support through active participation and collaboration from the European Commission – Eurostat.
Strategic objectives of CSPF
The general strategic objectives are:
- Exchanging knowledge and know-how for the optimization of strategic public management, sustainable public finances and economy as well as modern city governance,
- Sharing best practices and establishing a space for mutual learning at city level,
- Promoting transparency and sustainability in public finances through a network of major European cities and metropolitan regions,
- Cooperating with the partner cities across Europe,
- Contributing to the development of capacities regarding financial and managerial issues of major cities in a European context, i.e. regarding the EPSAS project of Eurostat,
- Maintaining a strong link with European policy development and formulation through showcasing strong local experiences.
The way forward: Roadmap 2020-2022
The roadmap for the next two years is set and contains topics in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the relevance of financial management for their implementation. Discussions in 2020/21 will thus concentrate on the SGDs Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), Climate Action (SDG 13) and Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), while taking the current COVID19 recovery scenarios into account (referred to as ”CSPF Green Recovery”). 2021/22 will be about digital finance and examine topics such as artificial intelligence/robots/“datafication” in relation to financial management and open government & data and elements of SDG 16 (Strong Institutions).
The next meeting, which will take place virtually on 10-11 December, will thus tackle Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11) & Climate Action (SDG 13) in the light of (green) COVID19 recovery.
For more information on CSPF and upcoming activities please visit www.cspf.eu.
