Better Regulation, Better Cities: A Decade of the Urban Agenda
Urban Voices #46
Karen van Dantzig is the Dutch Urban envoy at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in the Netherlands. As envoy, she connects different levels of government, such as the national government with local and regional authorities and vice versa. As the Pact of Amsterdam marks its 10th anniversary in 2026, Karen spoke with the EUKN about the achievements of the Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU), the progress of its Better Regulation pillar, and opportunities to further enhance its impact at both the European and national levels.
In November, the Pact of Amsterdam celebrates its 10th anniversary. The Pact set out an ambition for the Urban Agenda to contribute to Better Regulation, ensuring EU legislation better reflects urban needs. Looking back, where do we stand on that ambition today?
The Better Regulation Pillar is one of the most impactful and more difficult pillars in the UAEU. It is hard to measure its impact. One sign of success would be seeing input from a Partnership reflected in new or revised EU legislation, which did happen. But creating impact takes time and requires patience.
What is often underestimated is how much has changed structurally. Before the Urban Agenda, cooperation between the European Commission and local governments was limited. The UAEU put multilevel cooperation on the table, involving cities which know what happens in practice: they implement EU legislation on the ground, they see the challenges and possible solutions, they know what works and does not work, especially in an integrated manner across sectors and silos.
I would describe the achievements under three headings. First, the Urban Agenda has genuinely strengthened the voice of cities in EU policymaking. Second, it has contributed to better and more practical, implementable regulations. And third, it has improved the mutual understanding between governance levels and made cooperation more coherent.
As the Dutch Urban Envoy what do you do to support the Better Regulation agenda, at the European and the national scale?
At the European level, I keep pushing the Better Regulation pillar within the Urban Agenda by strengthening the multiannual working programme, supporting mapping exercises of Better Regulation actions, or asking questions about regulatory sandboxes in the Mission Cities context. We have also been directly involved in concrete cases. The Air Quality Partnership is a good example: the Netherlands was involved, and some years later you could see the input from the Partnership reflected in revised legislation.
At the national level, my mandate has two dimensions. On one side, I make sure that local governments – provinces, municipalities, and water boards – are involved from an early stage nationally in anything that happens at EU level, whether that is new Commission proposals, funding frameworks, or cohesion policy. On the other side, I try to influence the Netherlands’ engagement in Brussels on Better Regulation. At the moment, there is a strong push in the Netherlands around simplification, particularly on housing and building. This is relevant as it is an important example that connects the thematic priorities with the structural question of how regulation works for all levels of government, including cities. Besides, it can also contribute to alleviating the housing crisis that is taking place across the EU.
A Better Regulation tool to reflect on-the-ground realities are the Territorial Impact Assessments. What’s that about exactly? Who writes those? And would it be logical to have Territorial Impact Assessments on every EU legislative proposal?
The Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) is an important tool linked to the European Commission‘s Better Regulation framework and the Better Regulation toolbox. It maps the potential territorial effects of a specific regulation or combination of regulations, because what works for urban areas might not work for islands or mountain regions, and vice versa. TIAs therefore form part of the broader system of checks and balances aimed at creating effective and well-balanced legislation. I think it should be deployed in a targeted manner. Not every proposal should have a full Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA). TIAs are very useful but also time-consuming, complex and expensive. But there is a new development: a ‘quick check-mechanism’ that allows you to preliminary screen whether a proposal has significant territorial effects and to flag it for a full assessment if necessary. That is a smarter and more proportionate approach. There should be more Impact Assessments and TIAs than there are now, especially regulations touching on and affecting the physical domain such as environment, spatial planning, water or land use.
This is not solely the responsibility of the Commission. National governments, regional and local authorities can also request and carry out these assessments. In the Netherlands, for example, we
regularly conduct them ourselves, but we do not always feed the findings back to the Commission during the legislative process and the implementation phase. There is still work to be done by all. It should be a genuine two-way dialogue, not a one-way process.
The European Commission recently published an EU Agenda for Cities, positioning cities as essential to the future of the EU. Does this agenda change how we should view Better Regulation in the urban field?
The EU Agenda for Cities is important because it confirms that cities are crucial for implementing EU policy and regulations, and that Better Regulation for cities really matters. It is good to have the Commission and Executive Vice President Raffaele Fitto now saying this explicitly.
What I find particularly promising is the practical potential of the Agenda. The Commission’s city teams now have a stronger position to engage with sectoral Directorates-General about regulation. They can connect city dialogues more closely to Better Regulation processes and perhaps also feed directly into the Simplification Platform. This Platform will pay attention to gold-plating by Member States but importantly also look at the implementation of EU legislation at all levels of government, especially regional and local, and its effect on other stakeholders. If the Cities Agenda is used actively, it becomes a powerful lever for further strengthening the urban voice in EU policy cycle.
To conclude: what should we keep an eye on this year?
The obvious highlight is the 10th anniversary of the Pact of Amsterdam. Bringing together ministers, Urban Agenda partnerships, and other partners providing an opportunity not only to celebrate what has been achieved, but also to set ambitions for the next decade to come and firmly place Better Regulation better on the agenda. We will be celebrating the start of the next ten years, not the beginning of the end.
Beyond the anniversary, I will be following the new multiannual working programme under the Irish Presidency. It will shape the future direction of the Urban Agenda partnerships and offers another opportunity to make Better Regulation more effective and more impactful. The EUKN is preparing a second Better Regulation report this year, which I believe will be valuable for tracking progress and identifying where further action is needed.
More broadly, the Better Regulation communication and the Simplification Platform, and the new EU Agenda for Cities all point to renewed political momentum for urban Better Regulation. There is a real opportunity to build on that momentum. Let’s contribute to regulations that work for all, including cities and urban areas
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