The EU Covenant of Mayors at the heart of multilevel governance in Italy

In Italy, the EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (the Covenant) has become much more than a voluntary initiative for local authorities to tackle climate and energy challenges. It has evolved into a backbone for multilevel governance, enabling that critical link between municipalities, regions and the national level around shared climate and energy goals. 

The experience of the Covenant of Mayors National Coordination Board to connect municipalities, regions and the national level 

With 1,500 signatory municipalities committed to 2030–2050 targets, representing over 40% of Italian population, Italy is one of the countries with the largest Covenant community in Europe. This offers an extraordinary potential to deliver the EU’s 2030 and 2050 climate and energy targets on the ground. Nevertheless, most are large and medium-sized cities, revealing a structural imbalance between larger and smaller municipalities in their capacity to advance within the Covenant framework. 

^{Status of Italian signatories with 2030/2050 commitments.}

That smaller municipalities lag behind can be partly explained by the fact that large and medium cities more often have dedicated technical staff, access to climate and energy data, experience with accessing EU and national funding, and the administrative and technical capacity to update, monitor and implement Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs). Small municipalities, by contrast, often have one or two technical officers covering multiple policy fields, limited budgets and little access to specialised expertise. For them, preparing or updating a SECAP for the 2030–2050 targets can be overwhelming without external support. 

The proven value of Covenant Territorial Coordinators and multilevel governance 

The Italian experience though is clearly showing that smaller municipalities can make progress when guided by a strong territorial supporting mechanism and framework. Regions and provinces acting as Covenant Territorial Coordinators (CTC) provide exactly this missing layer of support: they pool resources, provide methodologies and data, organise funding and offer hands-on technical assistance. 

The results are visible. 

In several Italian regions (eg Emilia-Romagna, Piemonte, Veneto, Sicilia, Puglia), where regional governments play a strong and active role as CTCs, the share of municipalities - including small municipalities - that have upgraded their previous 2020 Covenant commitment to the 2030–2050 commitment is more than double that of regions without structured coordination. 

In those regions, Covenant signatories benefit from activities and opportunities, such as regional funding schemes for SECAP development, monitoring and implementation, shared data platforms and inventories, training programmes and technical helpdesks. By 2025, regions and provinces had collectively allocated more than 20 million euros to support signatories within their territories, with more regions now planning to increase financial support in the coming years. 

This is why multilevel governance is not optional in Italy. It is essential if smaller municipalities, home to a large number of Italians, are not to be left behind. 

The Covenant National Coordination Board  

The Covenant National Coordination Board (NCB) in Italy has multilevel governance as its founding principle. The board recognises the Covenant as a reference framework for implementing Italian climate and energy policies at the local level. It serves as a collaborative structure that supports, aligns and empowers Covenant Territorial Coordinators and signatories across the country. 

Established informally in 2021, the board brings together key actors of the Italian climate and energy governance landscape: ENEA - National CoM Coordinator since 2013 (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), RENAEL (Network of Italian Energy Agencies), and the Covenant-EU Office. 

Together, they form a unique board where national expertise, territorial action and European ambition converge. The NCB is currently being formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (more details here). 

The NCB's work is guided by the following strategic objectives and activities. 

• Enhancement/Recruitment of CTCs and Covenant Supporters, providing them with data, indicators and capacity building useful for all phases of the SECAP journey. 
• Supporting signatories in the transition to the 2030–2050 targets, ensuring that local commitments are updated and aligned with EU and national climate objectives. 
• Strengthening decentralised support structures and promoting multilevel governance mechanisms, working closely with regions, provinces and energy agencies (CTCs and Supporters) to make the Covenant framework locally accessible and tailored to the local level. 
• Building skills and networks, through the provision of tools, trainings and capacity building activities to support the Italian CoM-munity across the three initiative pillars of mitigation, adaptation and energy poverty. 
• Promoting synergies between institutions, local authorities, and territorial networks, connecting programs and tools promoted at European and national level (including the EU Missions, the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH), the EU Climate Pact, European Local ENergy Assistance (ELENA), etc). 
• Harmonising tools and work methodologies, promoting a shared approach based on digitalisation, open data, and the integration of policies for mitigation, adaptation, and combating energy poverty. 

Lessons learnt and next steps 

Italy’s experience shows that voluntary climate and energy commitments become most effective and more widespread only when embedded within a strong multilevel governance system. The climate and energy action gap between larger and smaller local authorities is not driven by lack of ambition, but by unequal access to data, skills, funding, administrative and technical capacity. Where regions, provinces and climate/energy agencies are in place and committed to acting as CTCs and Supporters, this gap narrows significantly. Territorial coordination creates economies of scale, ensures methodological consistency and gives even the smallest municipalities access to expertise and resources they would not have on their own. 

Furthermore, national-level coordination is crucial. The Covenant NCB provides a reference collaborative structure that promotes the alignment of local action with national and EU climate objectives, avoids fragmentation, and strengthens trust and cooperation among institutions. The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy shows its full potential when not treated as a standalone initiative, but as an integral part of national climate and energy governance. 

The value of the EU Covenant is recognised also in the Italian National Climate and Energy Plan (NECP). It states that achieving the 2030–2050 objectives requires a stronger and more active role for local authorities, and this can be realised also through the valorisation of their SECAPs. 

To fully unlock the potential of Italian signatories, the NCB is expanding and strengthening the network of Covenant Territorial Coordinators and Supporters, with the ambition to guarantee every municipality, regardless of size, access to structured technical and financial support under the Covenant framework. Continuous investment in digital tools, shared data platforms, training and capacity-building will be essential to move from planning to implementation and monitoring. By consolidating this multilevel governance model, Italy can turn its large CoM-munity into a successful example of how to achieve climate neutrality and resilience by 2050 or even before. 

The Italian CoM-munity

ENEA, National Coordinator since 2013

ISPRA, Partner since 2011

RENAEL, Supporter since 2021 

Area covered: National

Key figures

• Climate and energy ambition and objectives (2030 and 2050): 1500 Signatories signed the 2030/2050 Covenant commitments, representing 19% of all Italian municipalities and covering 42% of Italy’s population (25.4 million citizens)

• 955 Action Plans submitted with 2030/2050 commitments

• 64% signatories supported by CTCs

• 13% signatories supported by Supporters

• Several regions/provinces (Piemonte, Veneto, Sicily, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Marche, Abruzzo and Sardinia, Apulia, Emilia Romagna) have established technical support and financing schemes to support municipalities to develop their Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAP)

Related links

ENEA, Italian national coordination Covenant website

ENEA SECAP Platform

ISPRA

RENAEL

Emilia Romagna region, Covenant regional portal

Piemonte region, Covenant regional portal 

Veneto region, Covenant regional portal 

Veneto region ENEA SECAP Platform

Sicilia region, ENEA SECAP Platform

Puglia region, Covenant regional portal