20 New Members of the V4 Capital Cities Association

The Municipality of Budapest, Political Capital and the CEU Institute for Democracy held a major annual international conference, the Budapest Forum on Building Sustainable Democracies. Taking place on the margins of the conference, the Pact of Free Cities mayors' summit saw the alliance expanded with new members.

Held at the New Town Hall, the meeting was attended by 26 cities at mayoral level, in person, online or by video message. Participants adopted a joint declaration. The Pact is a global values-based alliance of cities, where city leaders work closely together to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, to promote progressive, sustainable urban policies and to take joint action against racism, homophobia, hate speech and all forms of exclusionary ideology.

The alliance includes global and smaller cities. Some of the cities joining include Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona, Florence, Frankfurt, Gdansk, Ljubljana, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Stuttgart, Taipei and Zagreb.

The Pact of Free Cities is a progressive, open alliance, founded by the mayors of Budapest (Gergely Karácsony), Bratislava (Matúš Vallo), Warsaw (Rafal Trzaskowski) and Prague (Zdeněk Hřib) in December 2019 in Budapest. The objectives of the Alliance are to defend the values of liberal democracy, pluralism, openness and cultural diversity, to promote better access to EU funds and to exchange good urban practices and policies.