No City Left Behind. Europe’s cities as advocates for a Just Transition

Sammanfattning: Europe’s transition towards a net-zero emission economy and society, needs to be designed in a fair and equitable manner. Despite the urgency for action, the term Just Transition has increasingly been turned into a catchphrase that is diffi-cult to grasp. In the EU’s multilevel governance structure, municipalities as im-plementers of EU policies play a crucial role in the transformation process. This thesis studies their roles as interest-driven, pro-active advocates towards the EU institutions by examining their efforts to influence the EU’s policy formulation process on Just Transition matters. The analytical framework of vertical venue-shopping provides guidance when assessing municipalities’ socio-economic in-terests and motivation to target the EU institutions as venues of choice. The study’s material consists of advocacy documents from European cities and re-spective networks and is complemented by interviews with their representatives. A qualitative content analysis identifies inclusiveness of the policy process and access to funding as the cities’ main interests. Municipal advocacy activity on the EU level is motivated by implementation issues of policies on the ground as well as conflicts of interest between cities and their national governments.