A group of more than 20 city leaders — led by Bart Somers of Mechelen in Belgium — will adopt a manifesto Friday afternoon on how to protect liberal cities, based on “openness, opportunity and livability” and to call for a different, “bottom-up European Union,” according to a draft seen by POLITICO.
The group includes the mayors of six European capitals — including Prague and Tallinn — the Dutch seat of government The Hague, and François Decoster, the mayor at the heart of the Calais migration crisis. Decoster has another credential that the group sees as important: he helped stitch together a coalition that kept Marine Le Pen’s National Front out of government in her own Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region of France. [...]
Somers says the trick is to treat people as individuals with many identities. “If I see a young Muslim man doing something wrong, I don’t speak to his Imam. I speak to him, the police speaks to him, not as a Muslim but as a citizen … You can’t reduce people to one dimension.”
For Liberals gathered in Warsaw, it’s clear that radicalization won’t be tackled if it is left to national governments and the EU. “What can stop radicalization? Cities and local government,” Somers said.
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