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The project “When Mayors make Migration Policy” explored the role of local authorities in migration and integration governance within the European Union. Funded by Stiftung Mercator, the project has been developed by research teams at the Universities of Hildesheim and Erlangen-Nuremberg. The project findings and recommendations available on this website document central opportunities and challenges of city diplomacy and city networking in EU migration and integration governance. They show that a growing number of local authorities realize that they have become de facto integration actors with expertise relevant to higher levels of governance. Nevertheless, dialogue and cooperation between local, national and European levels remains often ad hoc and depends heavily on the engagement of individuals.

As local authorities have the potential to bring outcome-orientation and reality checks into EU integration governance, a stronger institutionalization of European city diplomacy and multi-level communication channels is urgently necessary to ensure that EU-level policies are informed by and address local realities on the ground.