(Left-ish) Liberal Mayors of V4 Capital Cities Sign Agreement, Ask for Direct Funding from EU
Yesterday, the mayors of the capital cities of the Visegrád Four cooperation--the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia--signed a joint declaration in Budapest. This is a brand new international initiative, aimed to signal how much less to the extreme right they are than "their" governments. Here is an excerpt:
"We, the Mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw hereby commit to: Protecting and promoting our common values of freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity; Sharing our best practices in smart, evidence-based, and socially-aware city-management, especially in the field of sustainable city planning, climate protection, social inclusion, housing, transportation, the digital agenda or any other field of mutual interest;"
It all sounds kind of obvious, in a left-liberal-ish sort of way, doesn't it. And, sadly, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, this counts as a creative, progressive, I should add, also sort-of brave political act in the post-state-socialist social, intellectual, emotional and moral context. It signals how far the region's governments have gone in the extreme-right direction: kind of obvious, basic "petty bourgeois" principles are now to be specifically stated.
The four Mayors have stated them. Great. I could imagine something more progressive, with emphasis on rights-to-the-city, equality not only in general but specifically, say, in housing and food security, immigration, the urban-periurban-rural relationship, not to mention specific provisions to social and environmental sustainability, etc. But I'm afraid this is pretty much all that is possible in the current context of east-central EUrope. As for a global echo, all major western news outlets--see, e.g., here, here, here, here, or here--foreground the name of the group as "The Free Cities," barely mentioning the mayors' references to social inequalities etc. In other words, the initiative resonates, through the journalistic geopolitical frame of the leading western media, as evidence for a liberal "beachheads" against "illiberalism." There is a narrowly middle-of-the-road liberal reading of everything. The majors' gestures toward inequality reduction are fully, completely, totally lost on the global media.
What-ever, dude. More war metaphors, more liberal-yuppie "truth," more suppression of social values beyond "freedom" --just what the world needed.
Too bad the point of the meeting and the Declaration is that it has nothing to do with any of that, except for the "liberal beachhead" business.
The point here seems to have been to build a political momentum, and perhaps the beginning of a quasi-association with some kind of legal standing, to make it possible for the EU to channel funds to those four capital cities without the interference of "their" governments. In other words, it is, to a large extent, about badly needed subsidies. How do we know that? Well, here is the rest of the Declaration:
[The four Mayors commit to. . .] "Co-ordinating efforts to advocate city-tailored solutions in the European policies, especially in the Cohesion Policy, European employment, environmental, climate, energy, transport and economic policies, as well as during the legislative construction of the European Pillar of Social Rights; Supporting and jointly advocating towards EU institutions, agencies and decision-makers prospective EU urban programmes that would provide more direct funding for European cities."
Given the experience of CEU--a pretty ominous choice for a venue to hold the meeting, btw--if all else fails, the Mayors can always move to Vienna.
"We, the Mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw hereby commit to: Protecting and promoting our common values of freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity; Sharing our best practices in smart, evidence-based, and socially-aware city-management, especially in the field of sustainable city planning, climate protection, social inclusion, housing, transportation, the digital agenda or any other field of mutual interest;"
It all sounds kind of obvious, in a left-liberal-ish sort of way, doesn't it. And, sadly, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, this counts as a creative, progressive, I should add, also sort-of brave political act in the post-state-socialist social, intellectual, emotional and moral context. It signals how far the region's governments have gone in the extreme-right direction: kind of obvious, basic "petty bourgeois" principles are now to be specifically stated.
The four Mayors have stated them. Great. I could imagine something more progressive, with emphasis on rights-to-the-city, equality not only in general but specifically, say, in housing and food security, immigration, the urban-periurban-rural relationship, not to mention specific provisions to social and environmental sustainability, etc. But I'm afraid this is pretty much all that is possible in the current context of east-central EUrope. As for a global echo, all major western news outlets--see, e.g., here, here, here, here, or here--foreground the name of the group as "The Free Cities," barely mentioning the mayors' references to social inequalities etc. In other words, the initiative resonates, through the journalistic geopolitical frame of the leading western media, as evidence for a liberal "beachheads" against "illiberalism." There is a narrowly middle-of-the-road liberal reading of everything. The majors' gestures toward inequality reduction are fully, completely, totally lost on the global media.
What-ever, dude. More war metaphors, more liberal-yuppie "truth," more suppression of social values beyond "freedom" --just what the world needed.
Too bad the point of the meeting and the Declaration is that it has nothing to do with any of that, except for the "liberal beachhead" business.
The point here seems to have been to build a political momentum, and perhaps the beginning of a quasi-association with some kind of legal standing, to make it possible for the EU to channel funds to those four capital cities without the interference of "their" governments. In other words, it is, to a large extent, about badly needed subsidies. How do we know that? Well, here is the rest of the Declaration:
[The four Mayors commit to. . .] "Co-ordinating efforts to advocate city-tailored solutions in the European policies, especially in the Cohesion Policy, European employment, environmental, climate, energy, transport and economic policies, as well as during the legislative construction of the European Pillar of Social Rights; Supporting and jointly advocating towards EU institutions, agencies and decision-makers prospective EU urban programmes that would provide more direct funding for European cities."
Given the experience of CEU--a pretty ominous choice for a venue to hold the meeting, btw--if all else fails, the Mayors can always move to Vienna.
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