Chapter 2. European Policies Regarding the Climate Crisis. Implications for Vulnerable Groups and the Local Administration The European Union has long placed climate-related issues on its agenda, taking into account their various dimensions, one of them being how vulnerable individuals are affected. For the purpose of this report, we shall focus on two major projects that directly target local action at the city level. One of the EU programmes that places vulnerable people at its core is the Social Climate Fund 7 . The programme primarily aims to allocate European funds to member states to ensure a fair green transition, and implicitly to protect vulnerable groups from the costs associated with climate crisis measures. The main funding directions focus on developing programmes that help vulnerable populations cope with housing-related energy costs and manage financial difficulties related to transport (“household in energy or transport poverty”). In Romania, the Ministry of Investments and European Projects(MIPE) is the institution responsible for drawing up plans for the programme and coordinating their implementation. According to the document Social Climate Fund and Plan: Challenges and Opportunities, prepared by the 2024 working group on“Social Climate Fund” under the Presidential Administration – The Department for Climate and Sustainability 8 , the funds will become available starting in 2026. Romania is bound to receive around six billion euros out of the total of 54.6 billion euros allocated for all EU member states. Another important initiative relative to the topic of this study is EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities 9 (EU’s mission: 100 smart and climate-neutral cities by 2030). The goal of the mission is for the cities included in the programme to reach climate neutrality by 2030 using a collaborative strategy involving stakeholders. This includes models of cooperation between the public administration, the business environment, non-governmental organisations, the academia, and citizens. Romania has two cities, Cluj-Napoca and Suceava, and Bucharest’s Sector 2 included in the project. According to a response to our public information request, Sector 2 City Hall received the City Label in October 2024, meaning that its project was accepted for achieving this goal(the formal document is titled Climate City Contract 10 ). What is more, Sector 2 City Hall has set up a climate neutrality department 11 within the Strategy and European Funds Directorate, which includes three positions(the Bucharest City Hall appointed a climate officer in 2025, although it does not have a dedicated department for this area). In parallel, aiming to support the EU Mission – 100 smart and climate-neutral cities by 2030, Romania’s Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization together with the Ministry of European Investments and Projects have created the M100 National Hub 12 . Currently, the M100 is coordinated by an interministerial committee from the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests. It also includes four permanent guest members, representatives of the Cluj-Napoca City Hall, Bucharest’s Sector 2 City Hall, the Suceava City Hall, and the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding(UEFISCDI). The national hub went through its own selection process and included ten Romanian cities. This time around, the city of Bucharest applied and was included in the project as a consortium. The Bucharest City Hall coordinates and supports all of Bucharest’s six sectors. The chosen cities have reached the stage of establishing/finalising the 7  Details about the project to be found here: https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/eu-emissions-trading-system-eu-ets/social-climate-fund_en 8  Document available here: https://www.presidency.ro/files/userfiles/Raport%20FSC.pdf 9  about the programme here: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/ eu-missions-horizon-europe/climate-neutral-and-smart-cities_en 10  Document available here: https://netzerocities.app/_content/files/knowledge/4438/district_2_ccc_bucharest_.pdf 11  Organisational chart available here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://www.ps2.ro/index.php/primaria-sectorului-2/rof/organigrama-cu-nume-ps2-la-data­de-18-06-2025/download?p=1 12  Further details here: https://m100.ro/m100-national-hub 12 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.