Next Generation EU is a unique investment plan in the history of the EU to react to an unprecedented asymmetric shock. The remarkable amount of €723bn of its main funding instrument, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), has implications far beyond economic recovery. It also represents a new way of promoting public investment at the EU level.

From mobility and social cohesion to housing and innovation, the responsibility of city governments in services provision and infrastructures makes them fundamental allies in bolstering the just green and digital transitions at the heart of the transformations that the European institutions are calling for. As governmental actors, cities possess the political legitimacy and on-the-ground expertise necessary to unlock the potential of the policy measures adopted at the EU level in the face of the pandemic.

CIDOB and Eurocities have joined forces to bring the urban perspective into the debate on the future of EU funding instruments. The CIDOB Monograph “Urban Recovery Watch: Empowering Cities in the EU Green and Digital Transition” offers an EU-wide, country-specific comparative assessment that examines the RRF funding received by cities, the way in which this is invested, and the governance mechanisms in place to structure the work between the national and local level in Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain. It further includes in-depth case studies of specific cities active in the implementation of the Next Generation EU instrument, complementing the national outlooks with bottom-up perspectives from the city level, including the specific experience of metropolitan governments.