The European Parliament has recently commissioned a study on the role of cities in 2014-2020 Cohesion Policy. The study has been completed in September 2014 and the main findings are outlined below.

• Approximately 70% of European population lives in cities
• In most urban areas up to 4 million residents reside 
• Urban areas with population of less than 500,000 inhabitants have different statuses in different Member States -  depending on a country's size, political system and position
• There are only a few metropolitan regions in Europe (Paris, London, Rhine-Ruhr)
• Cities are heterogenic, economic and social hot-spots facing differnt challanges 
• Some of the cities are massively expanding, while the others are shrinking
• In 2013 OECD defined the key challanges for urban areas: smart growth, sustainability and resilience, inclusive growth and urban sprawl
• In order to enhance the role of cities and urban areas, it is necessary to understand characteristics of the cities
• The Cohesion Policy in 2014-2020 programming period enhances the role of urban areas by acknowledgeing the importance of cities and towns in specific investment priorities
• The European Commission recognizes that there are 5 levels when targeting urban aspects: European Level, Member State Level - Strategic Level, Member State Level - ERDF programmes level, Member State Level - implementation level, Local Level - project level
• Regional Operational Programmes are more important for cities/urban areas than the national Operational Programmes

Taking the above findings into account, authors have concluded that:

• European Urban Agenda is dealt with differently in different DGs - a unified and coordinated approach is missing, which increases inefficiency 
• The intention of the European Commission to enhance the role of cities in Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 has been unfulfilled at the Member State level
• The opportunities provided with the new Common Provisions Regulation have been missed

The set of recommendations for involving cities and urban areas in the future programming period and implementation of the current programming period are presented in Figure 1 below.

Source: The Role of Cities in Cohesion Policy 2014-2020