08 March 2022

29 Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) cities have successfully applied to the Climate-neutral and Smart cities Mission so far. Their applications can be seen as a commitment to deliver ambitious but tangible results in their effort to be climate neutral by 2030.

This EU mission is a new way to encourage cities all over the EU to take substantial steps in their transformation towards climate neutrality by 2030. By doing so, participants will play an important role in achieving one of the important goals of the European Green Deal: achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

These cities will soon contribute in a number of ways – from research and innovation to forms of governance and collaboration.  Furthermore, they will increase engagement of citizens in their effort to minimize their ecological footprint. Participating cities agree to a clear and highly visible political commitment to the EU as well as regional authorities and their citizens. In return, they will receive EU funding to help achieve their goal.

Out of 362 eligible applicants, 29 are ICC cities from 15 different countries at present – the full list can be found below. The variety of cities, both metropoles like Metropolitan City of Capital Rome  (Italy) and smaller cities like Vratsa (Bulgaria) shows that climate ambition is not determined by scale or geographic location.  The announcement of the successful participants is expected in April 2022. The ICC wishes all cities the best of luck on this journey!

The list of eligible ICC cities is shown below, and the full list is here.

Belgium:

  • Leuven
  • Mechelen

Bulgaria:

  • Sofia
  • Vratsa

Croatia:

  • Velika Gorica

France:

  • Issy-les-Moulineaux
  • Le havre seine Métropole
  • Rouen Normandie Métropole

Germany:

  • Heidelberg

Greece:

  • Heraklion
  • Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands
  • Thessaloniki
  • Trikala

Hungary

  • Budapest

Ireland:

  • Cork

Italy:

  • L'Aquila
  • Pescara
  • Reggio Emilia
  • Rome
  • Venice

Poland:

  • Gdansk

Portugal

  • Valongo

Romania:

  • Bistrita
  • Timisoara

Slovakia:

  • Bratislava

Slovenia:

  • Ljubljana

Spain:

  • Ceuti – Molina de Segura
  • Gijon
  • Pamplona