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News from cities in EuropeNEWS SECTIONS: World news | Election news | News from Europe | News from North America | News from Latin America | News from Asia and Australia | News from Africa | Urban events | NEWS SPECIALS: The 2011 London riots | The 2010 Love Parade tragedy | Latest news story |Rome’s mayor bans cars to preserve the Colosseum Rome, 5 August 2013: Rome’s newly elected mayor has fulfilled one of his pre-election pledges and banned private cars and motor scooters from the Via dei Fori Imperiali. The thoroughfare, built in the 1920s by Benito Mussolini to stage military parades, runs from the central Piazza Venetia to the Colosseum and bisects an archaeological site. While buses and taxis will still be allowed to use the boulevard, Mayor Ignazio Marino hopes that the ban will reduce traffic by up to 90 per cent. The mayor told the Italian news agency ANZA that it was vital for the preservation of ancient monuments like the Colosseum to cut pollution and vibration. Visitor numbers to the Colosseum have increased from one million to close to six million since the premiere of the Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator in 2000. But it has also fallen into disrepair in recent years: bits of stone, blackened by pollution, have fallen off and some experts have voiced concern that the foundations are sinking, and the amphitheatre is starting to lean. In an interview Mayor Marino said the closing of the Via dei Fori Imperiali was the cornerstone of a bigger vision that played on Rome’s strengths and uniqueness to develop a strategy for the city based on environmental and cultural sustainability. But critics of the scheme, particularly from residents and shop keepers in neighbouring streets, said that Rome didn’t need another Nero, referring to the Roman emperor who some believe ordered the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD to make room for an imperial palace. Heathrow airport fights its rivals and Mayor Johnson London, 24 July 2013: Yesterday, Gatwick, London’s number two airport after Heathrow, presented its expansion plans. Heathrow and Stanstead Airport outlined earlier this month their proposals to increase air passenger and flight capacity in London and South-East England. With London Heathrow operating at 98 per cent capacity the UK government has set up an independent commission, headed by the former head of the Financial Services Authority Howard Davies, to examine all airport expansion proposals and report back by 2015. All three London airports want to add additional runways to relieve flight congestion. But the most radical plans were presented by the Mayor of London. Boris Johnson suggested a brand-new airport to the east of London and to raze Heathrow to create a new suburb. Global Infrastructure Partners, the owners of Gatwick airport, some 45 km south of London, said a new runway south of its existing site would help reduce the city's dependency on Heathrow as a big hub airport. "Other world cities, including New York, Tokyo, Paris and Moscow, also operate a multi-airport or 'constellation' system, and handle greater numbers of passengers than cities relying on a single hub," the company’s chief executive said. He added that the additional runway would be privately financed and could be operational by 2025. Stanstead, to the north of London, suggested that the airport could become a new international hub with four runways capable of handling more than 150 million passengers a year. A spokesman for owners Manchester Airports Group said Stansted was uniquely placed to meet the UK’s aviation capacity needs now and over the next 15 years. “Almost overnight, Stansted could double the number of flights it handles without any need for significant investment in new infrastructure.” He also emphasised that far fewer residents are affected by noise at Stanstead than at Heathrow. Heathrow has submitted three proposals for a third runway to the Davies commission. It maintains expanding Europe’s busiest airport is the most logical solution to flight congestions. “It adds capacity where it is needed and wanted,” it say. The cheapest option for a third runway at Heathrow would cost some £14 billion. The price for a second runway at Gatwick is estimated at £9 billion and the owners of Stanstead believe the building of a new four-runway hub could be done with £10 billion. Boris Johnson’s plan, or vision as he calls it, for a brand-new airport to the south-east of London is estimated to cost as much as £65 billion. But the mayor believes that the construction of a new hub airport would provide 375,000 new jobs by 2050 and add £742bn to the value of goods and services produced in the UK. The mayor’s suggestion that the government could then buy Heathrow for £15 billion and develop it into a garden city with 100,000 homes was described as pie-in-the-sky, by local government leaders in areas which would be most affected by a new air hub. “What would happen to all the international business that have European headquarters in west London and along the M4? There is no guarantee they will move to the east of London when they could easily relocate in any other modern global city,” Rodney Chambers of Medway Council asked. Terry Farrell, one of Britain’s best-known architects, described closing Heathrow in favour of an East London airport would be like flipping London. If Boris Johnson’s vision became reality, London would not be the first city that moved its airport to an entirely new site. Some 20 years ago, Denver (Colorado) moved its Stapleton airport, which at the time was America’s fifth-largest hub, to a new site more than 20 km away. Last year the new Denver International airport handled 53 million passengers, 17 million more than the capacity of Stapelton before it closed in 1995. After the airport closure, Stapelton was transformed into a new community for 15,000 people, with nine schools and the city’s third-largest park. But the move of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport to the island of Chek Lap Kok has not yet produced any development gains. More than 15 years after the switch, the Kai Tak site, which lies only 10 kilometers from the world’s most expensive office market, remains largely deserted. A confident Moscow mayor keen to be seen to play fair Moscow, 20 July 2013: Speculations that Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was instrumental in the sudden release on bail of Russia’s best known opposition figure and political blogger may not be all that far-fetched. Aleksei Navalny, who two days ago was led off in handcuffs after being sentenced to five years for embezzlement, was granted bail in a complete u-turn by the state prosecutor. After his return to Moscow from Kirov, where the trial was held, Navalny told supporters that he was more determined than ever to win September’s Moscow mayoral elections. Many of the Russian capital’s political commentators believe that Mayor Sobyanin, who enjoys high approval ratings, and his friends in the Kremlin are keen for a fair contest to legitimise his position in the eyes of Western capital mayors. It is thought that the mayor’s office instructed city officials to facilitate Aleksei Navalny’s registration as an approved candidate. Other candidates include Communist Ivan Melnikov, Liberal-Democrat Mikhail Degtyarev, Yabloko party chairman Sergei Mitrokhin, and A Just Russia’s Nikolai Levichev. To forestall accusations of rigged elections, the Moscow mayor has also announced that video cameras will be installed in all polling stations. Opinion polls taken earlier this month show Mayor Sobyanin on close to 60 per cent, with Aleksei Navalny on less than ten per cent. The mayor will run as an independent but his campaign will be financed by the country’s ruling United Russia party. Conviction likely to bar anti-Putin candidate from running for mayor Moscow, 19 July 2013: Following his conviction for embezzlement, supporters of Russia’s best-known opposition figure, Aleksei Navalny, are divided on whether he should continue with his candidacy for Mayor of Moscow or withdraw. Navalny has been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin since he led last year’s mass protests against disputed parliamentary elections held in December 2011. Even in Russia, his trial over events in 2009 is seen as politically motivated. In a recent poll, only 23 per cent of Russians believed the case was about embezzlement, while 57 per cent said the trial was staged to silence Alexei Navalny and prevent him from standing for mayor. Political observers were surprised when last week Moscow’s electoral commission accepted Navalny as an official candidate but under laws introduced last year, anyone convicted and handed a prison sentence would be barred from running for elected office. After the surprise decision of the courts to grant Aleksei Navalny bail, it is possible that any ban could be deferred until after a judicial appeal. Aleksei Navalny’s campaign manager indicated that if his client would withdrew his candidacy he would instead call for a mass boycott of the elections. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced in June that he would resign and run in a snap election in September. Appointed in 2010 by former President Dmitry Medvedev and rubber-stamped by the Moscow City Duma, Sobyanin could have remained in office until 2015. But the Kremlin decided that he Sobyanin needed a degree of popular legitimacy. Moreover, Sobyanin is popular among Muscovites and President Vladimir Putin trusts him to remain loyal. It was also thought that holding elections in September rather than in two years would give potentially strong opponents little time to prepare. Sobyanin will run as an independent but his campaign will be financed by the country’s ruling United Russia party. Other declared candidates include Communist Ivan Melnikov, Liberal-Democrat Mikhail Degtyarev, Yabloko party chairman Sergei Mitrokhin, and A Just Russia’s Nikolai Levichev. In the trial, which took place in Kirov, Aleksei Navalny was accused of embezzling some 16 million rubles (US$490,000) while he worked for a state-owned timber company in 2009. The case was dropped by prosecutors several times only to be reinstated last year, in what critics say was a political move. Berlin mayor starts legal actions against rapper Berlin, 16 July 2013: Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit has started legal proceedings against the German rapper Bushido over his latest song. In the song ‘Stress for no Reason’ (Stress ohne Grund,) the singer fantasises about violence against named politicians and promotes homophobia. Bushido raps "I'll shoot at Claudia Roth and she'll get holes like a golf course," referring to the head of the German Green Party. In another verse he suggests that it was time for Serkan Tören, a German MP, to bite the dust. (Und ich will, dass Serkan Tören jetzt ins Gras beißt.) “ Berlin’s openly gay mayor is also targeted in the song. Bushido (real name Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi) has drawn criticism in the past for homophobic, anti-Semitic, and misogynist song lyrics. In his 2003 song ‘Berlin’ he rapped ‘Berlin is going to be hard again, because we beat up every faggot’ (Berlin wird wieder hart, denn wir verkloppen jede Schwuchtel.) In an interview with a German newspaper Bushido referred to actress Paris Hilton as a stupid piece of meat. Yesterday on television, Bushido tried to play down the controversy by saying his song did not promote violence but was merely meant to provoke. “I shoot with words not with bullets,” he said. The singer also maintained that fans of rap music knew how to interpret his lyrics. A video promoting Bushido’s latest song has been removed from YouTube. Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit is Germany’s best-known city leader. Before his first mayoral elections in 2001 he told the people of Berlin that he was gay. The phrase he used “ich bin schwul und das ist auch gut so – I am gay and that’s not a bad thing” has since been adopted by many prominent people, who declared their homosexuality. Reykjavik mayor threatens to break off relations with Moscow Reykjavik, 15 July 2013: The Mayor of Reykjavik wants to break off his city’s twinning arrangement with Moscow over the Russian capital’s stance on homosexuality. In a proposal put to Reykjavik’s city council, Jon Gnarr’s office wrote that in light of the discrimination suffered by Moscow’s gays and lesbians in recent months, the twinning arrangements between the two cities should be revised or terminated. In May, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin refused to a gay pride parade and threatened police actions against any unauthorised attempts. Moscow City Hall justified its refusal by saying that Russian society did not approve of homosexuality. Last month, Iceland’s national LGBT organisation Samtökin ’78 protested outside the Russian embassy against legislation which bans the spreading of ‘gay propaganda’ in Russia. According to the new law, organisations and individuals can be fined up to 500,000 rubels (US$16,000) for trying to convince minors of the benefits of same-sex relations. Local councils in several Russian regions, including St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, have already passed similar laws. In 2007, Moscow’s former mayor Yury Luzhkov described attempts to hold a gay parade in the capital as “satanic”. Last year, Reykjavik Mayor Jon Gnarr joined a protest against the imprisonment of three members of the Russian punk-rock band the Pussy Riot. Athens mayor escapes attackers on motor bike Athens, 8 July 2013: The socialist Mayor of Athens was physically attacked after leaving a trade union meeting yesterday. Giorgos Kaminis met with representatives from the Confederation of Greek Municipalities (KEDE) to discuss the government’s austerity measures and their affects on thousands of municipal employees. When the mayor left the building protesters crowded around him, whith some throwing punches. A YouTube video shows the mayor being shielded by his bodyguards before being rushed away on a motor scooter. A spokesman for the mayor confirmed the attack but said he was not seriously injured. The mayor blamed the Panhellenic Federation of Employees in Municipalities (POE-OTA) union and its president, Themis Balasopoulos for the attack. A statement by City Hall warns the union of leading its members down a very dangerous path. However the union denied of being behind the assault and accused fascist provocateurs of wanting to discredit workers’ just fight for jobs. The protests come at a time when the Greek government is close to reaching an agreement with its international lenders about promised funding of 8.1 billion euros (US$10.4 billion). Under the agreement some 3,800 local police officers will be transferred to the national police force, a move, trade unions fear, will make their members vulnerable to dismissal. Overall Greece has agreed with the international ‘Troika’, made up of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and European Union, to redeploy 25,000 civil servants and cut 4,000 jobs in the public sector by the end of this year. Greece was granted a 110 billion euro ($145 billion) bailout by its international lenders in May 2010. Another 130 billion euro ($170 billion) rescue package was approved in February 2012. In May, Mayor Kaminis was attacked by a member of the rightwing Golden Dawn Party. Warsaw mayor likely to face recall referendum Warsaw, 30 June 2013: Warsaw’s mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz could lose her job after her political opponents claim they have collected enough signatures to force a recall referendum. Once the 134,000 signatures handed in to the Prime Minister’s office have been verified, a vote on the mayor’s future could be held as early as August or by 6 October at the latest. The mayor, who not long ago was one of Poland’s most popular politicians, has been accused of increasing transport fares and waste collection charges at a time when the country’s economy has dramatically slowed down. Under laws governing Warsaw’s local government, at least 400,000 voters will need to take part in the referendum to remove Mayor Gronkiewicz-Waltz from office. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who belongs to the same centrist party as the mayor, would then have to appoint an interim mayor and set a date for new elections. The recall is likely to cost more than two million US dollars, money, the mayor says, should be spent on the city’s infrastructure. Supporters of Mayor Gronkiewicz-Waltz say that the recall has nothing to do with her performance but is an attempt by the nationalist Law and Justice party of former President Leck Kaczynski to discredit the Polish government. Both the mayor and the prime minister belong to the liberal Civic Platform. Since Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz was first elected in 2006, Warsaw has been transformed from a drab Soviet-style city into a metropolis, which is competing with Rome, Madrid and even Berlin for investment. Skyscrapers, housing international companies, have gone up all over the Polish capital and construction on a news metro line has begun. But after four years, during which Poland seemed to defy the global recession, economic growth has slumped to half a per cent. The city’s tax revenues have dropped and subsidies from central government have been curtailed. In an interview with the news agency Reuters, Mayor Gronkiewicz-Waltz said what was happening in her city was part of a nationwide campaign by the opposition to undermine the Tusk government. "We are seeing an economic slowdown, so we have to maintain fiscal discipline. This is hitting tax income. We are seeing the public mood stabilise at a significantly low level, so people feel the situation is getting worse," she explained. First ever World Mayor winner to be Albanian Prime Minister Tirana, 29 June 2013: The journey of Edi Rama, former mayor of Tirana and first ever recipient of the World Mayor Prize, to the Prime Minister’s office of Albania arguably began in what most would call a raw and rough-and-tumble way. In the 1990s, Rama taught at Albanian Academy of Arts, a site of political ferment after the termination of communism and the birth of the centre-right Democratic Party. But he quickly left the party, which he considered a bogus movement. Rama’s exit from the party was considered a betrayal and he was nearly beaten to death in front of his own house. Back in 1997, Edi Rama believed that his attackers were sent by then-president Sali Berisha, the very man he now replaces as prime minister. Last Sunday, Edi Rama and his Socialist Party achieved by Albanian standards a landslide victory, winning 84 of parliament's 140 seats, well ahead of Berisha's Democrats on 56. In a country which is almost evenly split between left and right, parliamentary elections are often decided by a few thousand votes. During his tenure as Mayor of Tirana, from 2000 to 2011, Edi Rama won a number of international awards, including the first ever World Mayor Prize in 2004, awarded by the City Mayors Foundation. A year later Time Magazine named him as one as one of Europe’s heroes, a tribute given to people who change the world for the better. During the 2004 World Mayor Project, supporters described Edi Rama as the man who changed a whole city. “Now there is a new Tirana, coloured, happy, with a new and improved infrastructure and cultural life. Edi Rama is the man who has given his best for his country and for Tirana’s citizens. Thank you, Edi, from our heart. You are surely the hero of our city.” Edi Rama told City Mayors, after being asked what, if elected Prime Minister, would he regard as the country’s most pressing issue, that Albania needed to create an economic environment that did not force thousands of well-educated citizens to seek a better future outside their homeland. After waiting for almost nine years, the former mayor has now been given the opportunity to put his vision into practice. One long-term aim will be to make Albania fit for membership of the European Union. The London-based Daily Telegraph reported that Edi Rama and Tony Blair recently met to discuss how the former British Prime Minister could offer advice through his Blair Government Advisory Practice, which counts the governments of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Brazil and Colombia among its clients. Moscow mayor’s resignation seen as politically motivated Moscow, 7 June 2013: It's pretty obvious why Sergei Sobyanin announced this week that he would resign as Moscow mayor and run in a snap election in September. What isn’t so clear is whether the gambit will pay off. Appointed in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev and rubber-stamped by the Moscow City Duma, Sobyanin could have remained in office until 2015. Likewise, the Kremlin could have easily rolled back its plans to reintroduce direct popular mayoral elections in the capital and reappointed him. But the Kremlin has clearly decided that, given the volatile political situation, Sobyanin needed a degree of popular legitimacy. Moreover, Sobyanin is popular among Muscovites and President Vladimir Putin trusts him to remain loyal. "Political control of the situation in the capital is a priority for the Kremlin. And in terms of efficiency, it is logical for the presidential administration to support empowering the mayor," political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya wrote. And holding elections in September rather than in two years gives potentially strong opponents like billionaire oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov and anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny - both of whom have expressed interest in running - little time to prepare. Moreover, Prokhorov, who has extensive foreign assets, would be hard pressed to repatriate them in time to be in compliance with new legislation restricting officials from such holdings. And as Tatyana Stanovaya notes, "experience has shown that Prokhorov is not interested in a serious confrontation with the authorities" and would probably choose not to run anything but a symbolic "face-saving" campaign. And Navalny remains tied up fighting fraud charges, widely viewed as politically motivated, in Kirov Oblast. So at first glance, a Sobyanin "resignation" (and it’s not really a resignation because he will remain in office as "acting mayor") looks like a clever move. Similarly, the Kremlin's current strategy also carries serious risks. The election in the capital will most likely be scheduled for 8 September, the same day voters in the surrounding Moscow Oblast will go to the polls to choose a governor. Former State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov, who says he plans to run for governor, said the Opposition Coordinating Council could nominate Navalny as its candidate for mayor. Such a unified opposition "ticket" could galvanize disaffected voters and prove to be a major headache for the authorities. Moreover, it would make a guilty verdict in Navalny’s trial, or any additional legal action against Gudkov, look brazenly political. And it's not as if the authorities can just rely on traditional "administrative methods" to get the result they want. "In the new Russia, after December 2011, there is a new criteria for evaluating elections -- their honesty. The Kremlin will need to pay attention to this social demand that there be honesty and transparency of the campaign and in the vote count," Stanovaya wrote. This is especially true in Moscow, which has the highest concentration of opposition-minded voters and who have become increasingly vigilant and creative in policing electoral abuses. (Report by Brian Whitmore) Russian mayor denies murder allegations Moscow, 4 June 2013: The mayor of one of Russia’s regional capitals was detained over the weekend in a military-style operation. Witnesses said that Said Amirov, who has been mayor of Makhachkala, Dagestan, since 1998, was arrested by special forces flown in from Moscow. The mayor, who is wheelchair-bound, was then whisked away by helicopter to the Russian capital. A spokesman for the investigating team alleged that the mayor organised the 2011 killing of the Investigative Committee official Arsen Gadjibekov in the Dagestani town of Kaspiisk. The deputy mayor and ten associates of the mayor were also arrested. The mayor is expected to be formally charged next week. Friends of the ‘popular’ mayor claimed that the arrest was politically motivated. Said Amirov is disliked by the Kremlin because of his ambitions to replace the recently appointed Governor of Dagestan. Under the mayor’s leadership, the population of Makhachkala has doubled and unemployment is virtually zero. Only two months ago, Mayor Amirov was named the best mayor in Russia. Said Amirov, who is forced to use a wheelchair since an assassination attempt in 1993, said he had no idea why he was arrested. "This is a politically fabricated case. It has no prospects. I will answer for every deed, every word, every sheet of paper." His lawyer added that his client had made powerful enemies in the Kremlin because of his popularity back home. “There was a lot he got in the way of, he has a lot of enemies.” Moscow claims that in recent years the number of suicide attacks and killings of government officials by radical Islamists has sharply increased. But local observers say many of the killings were connected with settling business and political scores. Ethnically, Dagestan is the most diverse republic in Russia, with 13 different nationalities represented on its state council. Mayor Amirov comes from the republic’s second-biggest ethnic group, the Dargins, who make up 17 per cent of the population. The Moscow-appointed governor is an ethnic Avar, the largest population group. Dagestan came to international prominence when it was confirmed that the two alleged ‘Boston bombers’ came from that part of Russia. Irish local government faces massive shake-up Dublin, 3 June 2013: Irelands needs a system of local government fit for the 21st century, is how a government spokesman introduced a report, which, when implemented, will produce the biggest shake-up of county and municipal councils since the mid-1980s. Under the proposals published last Thursday, the number of local authorities will be cut from 114 to 31, while the number of councillors will be reduced from 1,627 to 949. Dublin city and county will gain 53 councillors, reflecting the recent population growth. Other east coast counties like Meath, Louth, Wicklow and Wexford will also end up with more councillors but counties bordering Northern Ireland and those in the west of the country will have fewer councillors. The report by the Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee affects every county of Ireland, with the exception of Cork city. The plans include the replacement of town councils with municipal districts and the merger of councils in three counties. Under the government instructions, the committee was to provide for one councillor for every 4,830 population, allowing a flexibility of plus/minus 10 per cent. With the exception of Dublin City Council and Cork County Council, no council will have more than 40 members. County councils will have at least 18 councillors each. New, larger electoral areas will have between six and ten seats instead of the present three to seven seats. Commentators said that the larger constituencies will benefit the opposition Fianna Fail party as well as smaller parties and independents but not the governing Fine Gael party. “It was a politically noble gesture by the government to put the national interest before party concerns.” The government is expected to implement the recommendations in full, in time for next June’s local elections. Follow @City_Mayors |
 City Maytors' latest book 'Sustainability and the American City' has now been published. You may order your FREE copy now. Order form   Rome’s mayor bans cars to preserve the Colosseum  Heathrow airport fights its rivals and Mayor Johnson  A confident Moscow mayor keen to be seen to play fair  Conviction likely to bar anti-Putin candidate from running for mayor (Photo: Russian pro-democracy activist Aleksei Navalny)  Berlin mayor starts legal actions against rapper (Photo: German rapper Bushido)  Reykjavik mayor threatens to break off relations with Moscow (Photo: Reykjavik's Gay Pride parade)  Athens mayor escapes attackers on motor bike  Warsaw mayor likely to face recall referendum  First ever World Mayor winner to be Albanian Prime Minister (Photo: Edi Rama with the World Mayor Prize) Moscow mayor’s resignation seen as politically motivated  Russian mayor denies murder allegations  Irish local government faces massive shake-up (Photo: Dublin City Hall) |