The NECPlatform project was launched in response to the persistent gaps in the implementation of Article 11 of the Governance Regulation, which requires Member States to establish permanent multilevel climate and Energy Dialogues (CEDs). While the Regulation sets out the obligation, it has remained vague in terms of operational guidance, leaving many Member States without the tools, structures, or capacity to implement meaningful and inclusive dialogue processes.
Multilevel governance (MLG) is essential to ensure that climate and energy policies are not only well-informed but also effectively implemented on the ground.
Local and regional authorities are often at the frontline of delivering energy transition measures – from building renovation and sustainable mobility to community engagement and renewable energy deployment – yet they are too often left out of national planning processes. By failing to include the lowest administrative levels, national governments risk overlooking context-specific challenges and slowing down the implementation of key policies.
The NECPlatform project aimed to fill this gap by supporting six Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal and Romania) in creating or reinforcing permanent dialogue platforms, enabling vertical and horizontal integration, trust-building, and long-term cooperation between all levels of governance and a broad spectrum of stakeholders.
These platforms, called CEDs (according to the text of the Governance Regulation) were defined by the NECPlatform project consortium as follows:
Multilevel Climate and Energy Dialogues (CED) are platforms bringing together representatives from national and sub-national authorities and other relevant stakeholders, such as representatives from civil society, academia, industry, financial sector, NGOs, etc. Their purpose is to manage, in a collaborative process, the design, implementation and monitoring of climate and energy policies to make them coherent across levels of governance (e.g. European, national and local) and areas of competence. These platforms are also meant to ensure national policies are consistent with participants’ capacities and needs to engage in an ambitious and fair ecological transition with common objectives.
