ABSTRACT
The NextGenerationEU is a novel instrument of the European Union designed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic's negative impacts and boost the Member States’ economic growth. The aim of the chapter is to provide an answer to the question of the participation of municipalities in the National Recovery Plan prepared for the implementation of NextGenerationEU. This chapter starts from this general criticism and analyses in detail the municipalities’ role in this process. The chapter describes the degree of involvement of the municipal representatives in the drafting and implementation phases, their demands, answers to those demands, and the position of municipalities in the final agreement. The study, based on a multifactorial analysis of legal acts (primarily national) and media reports, proves that although the recovery plan plays an important role in programming activities aimed at ‘fighting’ the pandemic crisis, it only takes into account the typically urban perspective to a small (limited) extent, focusing on development challenges of nationwide provenance.
