On 6 November, Barcelona En Comú, the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) will host the Municipalize Europe! event, which is an opportunity to explore the agenda of transformative towns and cities towards the 2019 European elections. The event will see the presentation of Spanish cities' EU policy agenda and a dialogue about the role of towns and cities in transforming Europe.

On the same day, the ambitious mPOWER programme will be launched, progressive municipalist actions and strategies are absolutely vital in order to combat the failures of neoliberalism and work towards fair, clean and democratic energy futures across Europe. While there are many innovative ideas that have led to more equitable, just and democratic energy policies in cities, these local success stories can be replicated and shared more widely.

The project aims to identify and share best practices between European municipalities, setting up city- to- city learning activities, and strategising about energy governance, policy and technologies across Europe's municipal energy sector.

Registered for the Municipalize Europe! event? Then you can meet the mPOWER team and hear everything about the programme in person!

If you cannot attend the event, you can watch the event stream here or email Lavinia Steinfort for more information about the mPOWER project: l.steinfort@tni.org 

mPOWER is run by a consortium composed of the Transnational Institute, the University of Glasgow (UK), Platform (UK), Energy Cities (EU-wide), IPE (Croatia), University of the Basque Country (ES), and Carbon Co-op (UK).

The mPOWER project and consortium are funded by the Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme and involves seven partner organizations. The project started in May 2018 and will last for four years.

Municipalize Europe! Programme: 9:30 - 12:30

• Gerardo Pisarello, First Deputy Mayor for Economy and Labour, Barcelona
• Eleanora De Majo, City Councilor, Naples
• Rutger Groot Wassink, Alderman of Amsterdam City Council
• Anne-Sophie Olmos, Councilor for Public Management and Procurement, Grenoble City Council
• Ian Brossat, Councilor for Housing, Paris
• Ernest Urtasun, MEP
• Marisa Matias, MEP
• Kenneth Haar, Corporate Europe Observatory
• Satoko Kishimoto, Transnational Institute
• Nora Hamadi, Journalist

Streaming: https://web-greensefa.streamovations.be/index.php/event/stream/municipalize-europe

The world's investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) system faces the largest crisis in its history. It started off with citizen's critique during the protests against trade agreements such as TTIP, CETA and EU-Japan (JEFTA). The critique was rejected by the EU-Commission so far despite the many signs that these kind of corporate privileges seem to come to an end. Why is the Commission rejecting the justified criticism that can be found all over the world? Why does the Commission try to reform ISDS? Is the Commission's decision to negotiate trade agreeements and ISDS separately – as with Japan – a way to circumvent democratic scrutiny by member state parliament? All these question will be discussed during our panel on 18 October.