The European green deal and regionalisation: Italian and polish case studies

Abstract

The European Regions have been rightly considered as the key players in the realisation of the Green Deal. The Commission's Green Deal sets up an ambitious agenda aiming at cleaner energy, cleaner air, higher protection of biodiversity throughout the circular economy for 2021-2027. Its holistic approach based on local economy is coupled with employment strategy, reskilling, digitalisation and sustainable investment. Accordingly, the Committee of Regions in 2021, made Green Deal Going Local its priority objective. Intelligent Cities Challenge and Just Transition Platform are initiatives designed to support the delivery of the Green Deal at the local level. There is also a strong emphasis on the local, rural areas prioritising initiatives such as smart villages, ecovillages, investing in local food systems, water quality, protection of biodiversity, renewable energy. This contribution addresses the difficulties and efforts to meet the green economy targets at the local level. It considers some examples from Poland and Italy looking at the local strategies and the key issues such as access to funding, digitalisation or innovative solutions allowing access to data combined with the new employment objectives such a reskilling. The contribution aims to underline the difficulties in this area but also to provide some examples of good practice. Finally, it offers some reflections on the feasibility of the targets.