With the deadline near, Local Governments still left out of national Social Climate Plans

This briefing is based on a follow-up survey conducted between April and May 2025 by eight leading networks of local and regional governments: ACR+, CEMR, Climate Alliance, Energy Cities, Eurocities, FEDARENE, ICLEI Europe and POLIS. It follows on from a first briefing and survey (conducted August-September 2024), that assessed Member States’ efforts to involve municipalities in the design of national Social Climate Plans, highlighting serious discrepancies to comply with guidance documents and the guidelines of the SCF Regulation.

Six months later, ahead of the June deadline for the Plans, this second briefing explores the multilevel design of national Social Climate plans in their final stage, assessing the degree to which further integration of local and regional governments’ projects, plans and recommendations have or have not been taken into account in the development of Member States’ national Social Climate Plans.

The results of this second survey, however, again reveal considerable variation and indicate inconsistent, inefficient or delayed involvement across several Member States. Some governments have only shared limited information with municipalities, or conducted online consultations on the finalised plans while others engaged them early in co-design processes. Despite repeated encouragement from the European Commission, many suggestions from local and regional governments are still not meaningfully or systematically included in national Social Climate Plans. Experiences from across the EU show that this lack of involvement puts at risk the development of plans that reflect local needs and realities. To prevent top-down measures that may backfire or fail to support the most vulnerable, the European Commission should strengthen its monitoring of multilevel design and governance of these Plans. This will help ensure that national Social Climate Plans are designed in a way that is inclusive, locally informed, and publicly supported.