Local Alliance calls for a governance overhaul to put cities at the heart of Europe’s climate plans
In a new position paper, the Local Alliance – a coalition of CEMR, ACR+, Climate Alliance, Energy Cities, Eurocities, FEDARENE, ICLEI Europe, and POLIS – calls on the EU to seize the revision of the Governance Regulation to make National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) truly implementable, investable, and grounded in local realities.
Cities, towns and regions across Europe are already acting — renovating buildings, deploying renewables, transforming mobility systems. Yet the EU’s climate planning framework has not caught up. National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) continue to be drafted largely without the involvement of the local and regional governments that will ultimately deliver them.
The revision of the Governance Regulation, expected from the European Commission in the last quarter of 2026, is therefore a critical opportunity — one the Local Alliance is determined not to miss.
A structural disconnect
A wealth of local data, investment pipelines and climate plans already exists across Europe — from Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans to Climate City Contracts and local heating strategies. Yet this territorial knowledge rarely feeds into NECPs, creating duplication, fragmentation and missed investment opportunities.
Meanwhile, the multi-level dialogues already required under Article 11 of the current Regulation have largely remained disconnected from real implementation decisions or remained tick-the-box level only.
The result is a dangerous two-speed dynamic: high ambition at European and national levels, too little attention to what happens on the ground.
The Local Alliance’s answer: connect what already exists
The position paper calls for the revised Regulation to be built around four mutually reinforcing elements:
- a permanent multi-level dialogue platform in each Member State to align all levels of government around NECP preparation and monitoring, taking into account national governance structures and needs;
- a territorial chapter in each NECP drawing on existing local plans to show where and how national objectives will be delivered;
- territorially informed sectoral pathways linking national targets across buildings, transport, heating, renewable energy, and circular economy with the local realities that determine whether delivery is actually possible;
- and investment strategies that take account of local investment and capacity needs.
This is not a call for more bureaucracy. It is a call to make what already exists work together — reducing consultation fatigue, cutting administrative duplication, and turning NECPs from reporting exercises into genuine frameworks for implementation and investment.
Read the full position paper here
For more information, contact:
Policy Officer – Climate and Energy
