At the occasion of an Extraordinary meeting, the Confederation of Towns and Municipalities of Europe’s Board members have exchanged views on the situation of small towns across Europe in the light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

After having exchanged on the situation in Italy, France and Germany, the CTME has expressed a number of common concerns and underlined the need for a strategic action plan to stress the role of small towns across Europe to tackle the crisis as well as the need for small towns in the process of the post COVID-19 crisis and the recovery strategies, in Member States as well as at the level of the European Union.

The small towns of Europe have expressed the need for more resources of all kind (human, financial, logistic), a more explicit and stronger need for solidarity at the European level, and recalled the critical role small towns must play in the recovery, whether for re-localization of essential industries or on their ability to directly address and adapt to the citizens’ first and primary concerns.

Small towns of Europe agreed that a common press release as well as a position paper should be published in the coming days.

---