Dear Colleagues, Partners, and Friends!

We, the Secretariat of the new EU Initiative Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG), are happy to greet you and present you with our first account of the results we have achieved since January 2017, when Mayors for Economic Growth first came into operation on the ground.

During the first months of our work we pooled best international expertise and experience in order to develop our proposal to the potential signatories to the Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative.

2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia (20 April), Kiev, Ukraine (24 April), Chisinau (25 April), Yerevan (28 April). In Azerbaijan and Belarus the meetings of the M4EG Secretariat with the relevant national ministries took place instead (21 April and 26 April correspondingly).

During the launch events, the general architecture of the Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative was presented to the national stakeholders in each country, and the discussions as to how it can better address the varying national contexts and priorities followed.

Signing up for the M4EG Initiative is taking place on a rolling basis, and each of the countries is displaying its own unique dynamics in the process, with the numbers growing by the day.

Lot 1 (Ukraine) received 103 applications, Lot 2 (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova) – 61 applications. The applications are currently being assessed by the EC, and the list of semi-finalists eligible for the next selection stage is expected to be published in late July.

Mr. Mathieu Bousquet, the Head of Unit “Georgia, Moldova and Neighbourhood Cross-Border Cooperation” (Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, European Commission) greeted the new “Junior” members of the Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative, and awarded the signatory mayors with certificates to acknowledge their new status and commitments.