Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your interest in the Urban Agenda for the EU Partnerships and for your effort in applying to the call for partners, on behalf of the European Commission and Council Presidency of the EU.
There was a large interest in the Sustainable tourism partnership, with more than 80 urban authorities, regions, Member and Partner States and other stakeholders submitting applications.
After a subsequent assessment of the applications carried out by experts on both topics and after discussions with the Urban Agenda Technical Preparatory Group and the Urban Development Group, a proposed list of partners was agreed. In line with the requirements of the Pact of Amsterdam, a group of around 20 partners could be selected, representing different levels of governance as well a balanced geographical distribution. The final composition has been approved at the Director Generals on Urban Matters meeting on 26 October 2022. Please find more details about the process in the background information below.
Unfortunately, your application was not selected this time for the final composition of the partnership on Sustainable tourism.
However, we would like to congratulate you for the quality of your application and in this regard we would like to keep you informed about the work of the partnership in order to find possible ways to benefit from your involvement and knowledge for the work to be delivered. We will be looking for options on how to organise this process with the coordinators.
In addition, we encourage you to continue following the Urban Agenda for the EU when new calls for partners will be published on other themes that could be of interest to you as well in relation to your work on sustainable urban development. Many of these opportunities will be shared also via the new EUI newsletter. We therefore encourage you to subscribe to it.
Background
The call for establishing Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU) partnerships was open on 18 July 2022 for all categories of applicants to the Urban Agenda for the EU (Cities, Member States, other stakeholders) and closed on 16 September 2022. A background document accompanied the call, explaining the UAEU as a whole, the selection process and selection criteria of the call, as well as the type of responsibilities for each category of partner/coordinator.
Some selection criteria were applicable at the level of the Partnership as a whole, e.g. number of cities, size of cities, geographical balance etc., whereas other selection criteria were applicable at the level of the partners, e.g. motivation, expertise, resources, outreach etc. Specific criteria were used also for applications for the role of coordinator. All applications were assessed individually by experts hired by the European Commission who presented an analysis and scoring system to rank the applications and determine the most suitable candidates for taking part in the two partnerships.
This assessment grid was explained to the members of the governance bodies of the Urban Agenda for the EU, and the analysis results were presented in details. The final proposal for the composition of the Partnerships was submitted by the Presidency to the approval of the Directors General on Urban Matters from EU Member States on 26 October 2022.
Kind regards,
Laura LIGER| Policy Officer
European Commission | DG REGIO – Unit DDG.03 Inclusive Growth, Urban and Territorial Development
* laura.liger@ec.europa.eu ' +32 2 29 79942
Cours Saint Michel, 23 - 1040 Brussels / Belgium