Marselles EU Meeting / Fwd: [reclaiming-spaces] French EU presidency / solidarity , sustainabilty and housing rights..

Knut Unger, Mv Witten schrieb:
> Crisis & EU & housing
>
> As part of the French EU presidency European ministers responsible for
> urban development and housing will meet in Marseille, 24th – 25th
> November 2008. According to the programme of the French presidency they
> will speak about two complexes:
>
> (1) an operational continuation of the approaches of the so called
> "Leipzig Charter for sustainable European cities", which was one of the
> results of the EU urban ministers meeting during the German presidency
> 2007 (accomaponied by demostartion in Leipzig). The French programme
> promises to discuss links between a "social city" and a "sustainable
> city" which could be combined on an approach towards "sustainable and
> solidarian cities" AND to focus on the contexts with climate change.
> (2) the problems of access to shelter by disfavoured persons, the report
> of the EU commission about Services of General Social Interest and
> social housing policies within the internal market.
>
> At the first view this sounds great. Is the French presindency going to
> put the EU on a path to cities of solidarity , sustainabilty and housing
> rights?
>
> SOME BACKGROUND
>
> During the German presidency we (German AG Habitat) cared about some
> interventions on the proposed charter. Besides other things we called
> for an inclusion of housing which was totally absent in the first drafts
> (similar interventions can from CECODHAS and tenants unions and HIC).
> But we even strongly criticized the subordination of urban development
> under the Lisbon strategy (which orientates on an Europe as the
> worldwide most competitive knowledge based economy) and the obvious
> deficits in addressing major challenges like climate change,
> unsustainable transport and democracy. The final text of the Leipzig
> Charter with some minor changes reacted to the critics. I.e. housing was
> mentioned as part of a possible strategy in disfavoured neighbourhoods.
>
> The "Leipzig Charter" by some observers today is seen as a strengthening
> of social and sustainable view on cities and a correction of radical
> neo-liberalism territorial approaches which dominated the EU policies
> since the 90ies. However, according to our view the "Leipzig Charter"
> isn't much more than a pamphlet calling for some improvement of
> "integrated urban management" in order to "strengthen strengths" of
> already strong cities in the global competition AND to combine that with
> a specific attention towards disfavoured neighbourhoods, which should be
> upgraded in order to reduce social costs and support competitiveness.
> Only within the problems of disfavoured neighbourhoods the charter
> promotes concrete measures towards sustainability and social
> developments and in this context even mentions housing as a possible tool