Petition Letter

To: Committee of the Regions,

European Commission – DG Enlargement,

President of the European Commission

Subject: Request for extending the Covenant of Mayors to South Eastern Europe, and Western Balkans

and Turkey (IPA Countries).

We, as mayors who signed the Covenant of Mayors, through our national associations of local authorities,

members of the Network of Associations of Local Аuthorities of South-East Europe (NALAS), would like to

request the EU Commission to consider the prospect of extending the scope of the Covent of Mayors as

mentioned in the above subject.

Energy efficiency, which would help to improve quality of life for our citizens, is amongst our highest

priorities as Europeans. Raising of awareness on local potentials and benefits of energy efficiency, as well as

the integration of sustainable energy issues into urban development planning, are among the main concerns of

the municipalities throughout EU member states but also for the municipalities in EU candidate and potential

candidate countries.

As signatories of the Convent of Mayors which is a mainstream European movement involving local and

regional authorities, we voluntarily committed to increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy

sources in our cities. It is regrettable that South-East Europe, which has both candidate and potential EU

candidate countries, is the only region neighbouring the EU in which a Covenant of Mayors office is not

established nor is anticipated to be established in the near future.

Indeed, apart from the signatories in Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia, which are EU Member States,

there are 32 Covenant of Mayors signatories in the rest of the region, of which 2 are capital cities.

We, as mayors of Covenant of Mayors signatory cities and towns from SEE would like to request the

European Commission to:

• Recognize the necessity to extend the Covenant of Mayors to SEE and to provide support to the

signatory cities and/or any other relevant entity involved in the Covenant implementation, in developing their

own proposals in the framework of the Covenant of Mayors.

• Provide support to the signatories of the Covenant of Mayors from SEE so to endorse and support the

efforts deployed by local authorities in the implementation of sustainable energy policies, as part of the

European integration process of the participating countries.

• Launch a procedure for establishing a Covenant of Mayors Office based in South – East Europe and set

up in a beneficiary signatory city of the IPA region that will be especially devoted to provide strategic guidance,

financial and technical support to the signatories.

This petition was signed by the mayors of:

CITY OF VRANJE

VARVARIN MUNICIPALITY

TEMERIN MUNICIPALITY

MUNICIPALITY TITEL

CITY OF NIŠ

CITY OF ZRENJANIN

ŽABALJ MUNICIPALITY