Translation of "Groupe chargé du Projet sur la ville écologique " (French → English) :

17. Calls on the authorities to promote ways to reduce the demand for transport by enhancing the use of teleworking and ICT tools and to be aware of the figures of the Eurobarometer survey that show that EU citizens are concerned about the negative impact of increased traffic in cities, considering traffic congestion (76 %), air quality (81 %) and accident rates (73 %) to be the most serious problems; calls on the Commission to monitor the new forms of mobility related to transport (e.g. self-drive vehicles), to carry out, in cooperation with the Member States, an analysis of all available ...[+++] measures helping to minimise the number of injuries and deaths, in particular of pedestrians and cyclists, and to promote the use of bicycles in cities, along with investment in cycling lanes and measures to raise awareness among road users regarding safety for cyclists; points out that cycling plays an important role in contemporary planning of sustainable urban mobility and that it is part of the solution for preventing congestion; stresses that segregated cycle/pedestrian paths should be included as a matter of course when building or restoring roads; reiterates in this respect that the increased use of bicycles in cities enhances traffic flow, improves public health and reduces the carbon footprint; stresses that an increased use of bicycles in cities could contribute to the Europe 2020 objectives; asks the Member States to continue building ring roads in order to minimise the number of vehicles going unnecessarily through cities, and calls on the Commission to find ways to support these projects financially; stresses that more efforts need to be undertaken in order to reduce the number of cars in the city; calls on local authorities to promote policies to encourage green transport by providing facilities, reducing taxes and establishing green certificates;

I. whereas the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), in its 2011 report on Spain, expresses its concern about the Constitutional Court’s 2007 decision declaring the criminalisation of Holocaust denial to be unconstitutional; whereas the judgment states that the simple, neutral denial of some facts without any intention to justify or incite violence, hatred or discrimination has no criminal relevance; whereas 4 of the 12 judges voted against the ruling; whereas ECRI has been informed that the local leader of the Popular Party has been promoting hate speech in Badalona, a city near Barcelona, for several years, accusing Romanian and Roma immigrants of being the cause of crime in the city; whereas civil society organi ...[+++]sations have expressed concern about the ‘invisibility’ of racism and racial discrimination in Spain, as well as passivity and a lack of will to acknowledge and deal with the problem at lower levels of government; whereas the fact that there is no data available on racism or racial discrimination contributes to the impression that racism does not exist; whereas the hate crimes and discrimination service of the Barcelona prosecution office was set up in October 2009 following two highly publicised trials of owners of Barcelona bookstores who were selling publications justifying and promoting genocide; whereas, according to the authorities, there are no plans at present to reproduce this service in other Spanish cities and it is too early to evaluate its effectiveness;

F. whereas, on 26 February, two suicide bombers from Boko Haram detonated explosives in a car outside a church in the town of Jos, killing three people and wounding 38; and whereas, on 21 February, extremists detonated a bomb outside a church in the city of Suleja, injuring five people;

13. Stresses the key role of urban areas and regions – including capital cities and their regions – in achieving the economic, environmental and social objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy; supports the dynamic process launched during the previous programming period for Integrated Urban Programmes and stresses the importance of the experiments currently under way; calls for support for ideas and projects which can serve as models, on the basis of integrated place-based development plans, and for the mutually beneficial upgrading o ...[+++]f links between towns and cities and the rural areas functionally linked to them; considers that greater cohesion between these areas is of special importance in addressing problems of areas with disadvantaged communities; stresses, in this context, that the greatest socioeconomic differences often exist within cities and that cities with deprived areas and pockets of poverty are also to be found in wealthy regions;

Commissioner Barnier was given a presentation of several ongoing projects; among others from Steel to Meal, the transformation of a steel town to a tourist and gourmet centre; the Growth Group, which showed how three small municipalities are co-operating in the development of local industry.

In the same city we had two groups of beneficiaries: one project was for street children or orphans or simply abandoned children, and the other was for children who had been freed by the project from being enslaved.