The EU Cities Mission: A Governance Innovation for Stockholm?

Acknowledging that cities play a key role in climate change mitigation, the European Union (EU) launched the Cities Mission in 2021 to accelerate urban climate action. Intended as a governance innovation, it seeks to stimulate mission-oriented governance in cities. This implies reshaping governance structures and processes through multi-level collaboration, engaging citizens, and unlocking other driving forces for transformation. While scholars have reflected on the potential of the EU Cities Mission, there is a limited understanding of how it occurs in practice. To address this gap, we apply an explorative approach and employ a who-how-what heuristic to analyze the extent to which the EU Cities Mission fosters innovations in governance structures and processes in Stockholm, a frontrunner city. We conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with civil servants and other stakeholders and reviewed key documents. Our results suggest that the EU Cities Mission has not been an impactful governance innovation for Stockholm, except for introducing the Climate Investment Plan and increasing multi-level collaboration. It has mainly reinforced the effects of a similar mission approach—driven by Sweden's Viable Cities Program, such as breaking down siloed structures and enhancing innovation management. The results also lead to critical reflections on Stockholm's progress in engaging citizens. Based on the results, the study highlights opportunities to increase the success of the EU Cities Mission in Stockholm and other European cities. More broadly, the paper contributes to our understanding of the EU Mission Approach and its operationalization, while critically reflecting on its added value as a governance innovation.