The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has adopted its opinion on the AI Continent Action Plan at its plenary session on 10 December 2025: The opinion was developed by rapporteur Alberto Cirio (IT/PES), President of the Piedmont Region, by consulting stakeholders and experts in local and regional government. In the opinion, CoR underlines the strategic nature of AI technology and AI talent for the EU and calls on the European Commission to support cities and regions in the uptake of European AI solutions.

Living-in.EU and Eurocities are actively working on the impact of AI at local and regional level and were invited by the CoR to participate in the consultation process: The contribution was based on feedback and use cases shared by cities and regions, It also included previous positions on AI such as the joint response to the Apply AI Strategy consultation, and the Eurocities response to the 2024 CoR opinion “Challenges and Opportunities of AI in the Public Sector: Defining the Role of Regional and Local Authorities (LRAs)”.

These contributions fed into the development of the opinion, which reflects key aspects of the Living-in.EU/Eurocities input:

Recognising cities’ key role in decision-making on AI

In its adopted opinion, the CoR stresses that “LRAs are central to the adoption of AI: as the level closest to citizens and as providers of a wide range of services, they can help to advance responsible development and the use of AI technologies across key sectors.”

Providing support and guidance to cities and regions for complying with EU legislation on AI

As cities and regions cited the lack of clarity about how to interpret and comply with regulation on AI as a key barrier to AI implementation, Living-in.EU and Eurocities called for increased support and guidance for complying with the AI Act and related regulation on data, privacy and cybersecurity, and how it should be practically understood and applied.

The final CoR opinion states that “more support is required from the national and EU levels to provide guidance and assistance for local and regional administrations on AI compliance, in particular regarding liability, privacy and data protection”, and “urges EU and national authorities to provide LRAs with sufficient resources and concrete support for navigating and complying with EU legislation” in all languages.

Supporting the uptake of AI at local and regional level through AI sandboxes and testing facilities

To ensure that cities and regions can test AI solutions in a controlled environment, Living-in.EU and  Eurocities stressed the need to address remaining uncertainties about the coordinated AI regulatory sandboxes under the AI Act.

In the final opinion, the CoR supports “the creation of regulatory sandboxes where AI solutions can be safely tested before being widely deployed, in particular in connection with data use and privacy requirements, which are a cause for concern for many frontrunning LRAs”.

Ensuring targeted and earmarked financial support and capacity for the scale-up of AI solutions in public administrations

Living-in.EU and Eurocities highlighted that most local and regional authorities are lacking adequate funding needed to scale up AI applications, which creates a need for sufficient financial support for public authorities to deploy AI solutions, and improved access of cities and regions to different funding instruments.

The CoR opinion “calls on the Commission to establish a single ‘AI Fund for regional and local authorities’, with the aim of accelerating the full implementation of all the actions envisaged in the AI Continent Action Plan” and, with a view to the proposed new 2028-2034 EU budget, “calls upon the Commission to keep the Horizon funds and the Competitiveness Fund accessible for LRAs”.

Strengthening AI literacy and skills of public administration staff and city residents

Considering local and regional authorities’ need for support to provide targeted AI skills to public officials, Living-in.EU and Eurocities called on the EU to ensure sufficient resources for capacity-building in public administrations, and to support cities’ and regions’ initiatives to make citizens aware of the benefits and risks of AI and its safe and trustworthy use.

In its adopted opinion, the CoR “points out that LRAs have an important role to play in increasing digital and AI literacy both in the administration, among politicians and decision makers, and among the general public, for example by organising citizen engagement hubs and panels, social AI labs, and other solutions”.

Finally, the opinion recognises the role of city networks, explicitly mentioning the Living-in.EU initiative:

• "[The CoR] reiterates the key role of decentralised initiatives such as EDIHs and Living-in.EU, which are closest to people on the ground, in providing immediate hands-on expertise and thus contributing to building public trust in digital solutions […]."
  

• "[The CoR] stresses the essential role of procurement and supply management in ensuring support for AI solutions developed in the EU by European experts and in enabling LRAs to adopt safe AI solutions [and] notes that exchanges of practice between public authorities have already begun – a set of guidelines and templates for contractual clauses for public procurement of different digital solutions, developed under the Living-in.EU movement, is now publicly available."
  

• "[The CoR] recommends again the use of proper adjusted indicators to monitor different digital gaps at EU level and notes in this light ongoing initiatives [such as] LORDIMAS, an application that features close to 400 local and regional entries and has been created within the framework of the Living-in.EU movement.”