European Maritime Day 2025

THE EMD CITIES ROUND TABLE NETWORK CHALLENGES FACING BLUE ECONOMY, ENERGY TRANSITION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Join the EMD Cities Network in Cork for the 4rd edition of Round Table discussions with mayors from coastal cities.

The 2025 edition focuses on Our Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters - Cities to the rescue.

The Round Tables of the EMD Cities Network gathers past, current, and future EMD cities. Promoting round table discussions among politicians, port authorities, scientists, stakeholders, project leaders and students. With each coastal city presenting a local challenge related to the blue economy, energy transition and sustainable development with the participants.

The EMD Cities Network Round Table will give a progress update of their work in the past year. At the EMD in Svendborg the mayors of Cork, Brest, Ravenna, Den Helder and Svendborg raised the issue of greater involvement of maritime cities in the work of the European Commission and DG Mare.

Since then they have worked on the EMD Blue Cities Declaration to be presented at the panel discussion hosted by DG Vitcheva.

Key points of the Declaration are:

1. Strenghtening the EMD Blue Cities Network;

2. Recognising the Role of Maritime and Ocean cities;

3. Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

4. Supporting the European Green Deal and advocating for a Blue Deal;

5. Ensuring Maritime Priorities in the EU Cohesion Policy and

6. Advancing Knowledge, Education and Innovation.

 The round table starts Wednesday 21 May with a session introducing the involved cities and their challenges. They will present their findings in a plenary session on Thursday 22 May.

In this way, the round tables will serve as a powerful networking tool to exchange and identify opportunities for common action.