Ten EU Mission Cities had their plans for climate-neutrality formally recognised by the European Commission this month, boosting their ability to meet their goals by 2030.

The cities included five ICLEI Members—Mannheim (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden), Valencia, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and Zaragoza (Spain)—as well as five others from across Europe, including Sønderborg (Denmark), Madrid and Valladolid (Spain), Klagenfurt (Austria), and Cluj-Napoca (Romania).

All were awarded the first EU Mission Label, which the Commission says, “aims to facilitate access to public and private funding” for their objectives.

The announcement of the awards was attended by Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, at an event for the European Week of Regions and Cities, who said cities and towns were “at the frontline of the just green transition”, but the awards are “only the beginning”.

“[T]he cities need help from their national and regional governments, their local businesses, investors and innovators, to put their plans into practice. I invite all of them to engage with the cities and to see how they can contribute”, said Šefčovič. “I also encourage all cities in Europe to follow suit and become frontrunners for climate neutrality”.

The EU Mission Label follows the successful development of each city’s Climate City Contract (CCC), which contains a detailed action plan and investment strategy. Created with local stakeholders, including the private sector and citizens, CCCs are ‘living’ documents and continually referred to and updated.

“There is a constant relation between implementing, measuring progress, evaluating what is working, and adjusting the plans accordingly, which will inform the next iterations of the CCC”, contributes ICLEI’s Svea Heinemann, a City Advisor on the NetZeroCities programme.

For more information, read about the CCC process and their impact here and access the press materials for the EU Mission Label announcement here.