Cities and citizens as key players for Europe’s recovery

Dario Nardella is an Italian politician, who currently serves as President of Eurocities and Mayor of Florence. Prior to his current roles, he briefly served as deputy mayor and was a member of former mayor Matteo Renzi’s cabinet, with responsibility for economic development and sports. His political career began as a councillor at the City Council of Florence, after which he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Nardella has authored several publications on public and constitutional law, as well as cultural property.

Prior to joining Friends of Europe, Dharmendra Kanani was director of policy at the European Foundation Centre (EFC). He was the England director at the Big Lottery Fund, the largest independent funder in the UK and fourth largest in the world. Dharmendra has held senior positions in the public and voluntary sectors and advisor to numerous ministerial policy initiatives across the UK.

As the vice mayor of Porto and the chair of the Eurocities Environment Forum, Filipe Araujo has a strong ambition to have his city lead by example when it comes to sustainability. He is also the City Councillor of Innovation and Environment and is very focused on renewable energy production, green roofs and green infrastructure, an increase of the green areas, mobility decarbonization, incentives to public transportation, organic waste collection and circular economy as a whole.

Flavie Boukhenoufa is the deputy mayor of Rennes. From a very young age, she was involved as volunteer in different local education associations.
She started her career at the Ille-et-Vilaine Education League, where she helped elected officials define their local educational project, train community education officers and lead departmental and regional youth councils. In 2015, she became its general manager in 2015, a position she still holds today. She was elected Deputy Mayor of Rennes in July 2020, in charge of international relations, public relations, cults and laicity among others. She wishes to contribute to the promotion of democratic renewal, through citizen education from the youngest age and the facilitation of participatory processes to involve all citizens.