Building on the expertise of successful cities such as our President Bart Somers’ city of Mechelen, the European Commission and European Committee of the Regions are collaborating to foster exchanges among cities to identify effective and transferable approaches. In this context, European Commissioner Julian King supports Bart Somers’ push for a European network of cities for the prevention of radicalisation.Preventing radicalisation is nothing new to Bart Somers, Mayor of Mechelen. His successful policies received wide acclaim across Europe and beyond. He argues that “prevention of radicalisation is always better than deradicalisation”:

During the EU Cities against Radicalisation Conference in Brussels, European Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King came out in support of Bart Somers’ en Beatriz Becerra MEP push for a European Covenant of Cities for the prevention of radicalisation. They agreed there is a need for a higher level of engagement and want to build this network to promote regular, structured contacts & approaches to tackle radicalisation.

The city of Mechelen can be a great example in such an network for other cities as it has a strong track record in fighting radicalisation. A lot of cities already came to study the “Mechelen model” – last month (January 2019) alone, three capitals cities (Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Berlin had delegations visiting Mechelen.

Watch Bart Somers explain the concept of the network and how Mechelen can play an important role: