FEDERACION ESPAÑOLA DE MUNICIPIOS Y PROVINCIAS

Vitoria, 2012 European Green Capital


Vitoria is the European Green Capital in 2012, it decided recently in Stockholm an international jury, which has come to acknowledge the work done in recent years by various local officials in Vitoria Gasteiz. The city, surrounded by a green belt of over 500 acres and 50 miles of trails for walkers and cyclists, forests, rivers, fields of crops and also the Salburúa wetland is one of European cities with more green spaces capita.



In this important natural heritage are other factors related to the use of citizens, the Mayor of the city, Patxi Lazcoz, highlighted when assessing the recognition of Green Capital, and said there have been many small gestures citizens that have enabled the city to have some data on water consumption or use public transport "exceptional", also taken into account by the jury. He also stressed the importance of "political courage" to gain support for "difficult" as to avoid excessive consumption of land in the construction or the Plan of Sustainable Mobility.

In his first appearance after receiving the award, said that looking Lazcoz and 2012 "responsibly" because Vitoria is a city to be able to carry out any environmental test to extrapolate then to other Europe, what will become "a mirror for 400 million Europeans."

He has also held that the award can be a "bulwark to create jobs and wealth" and says that while still missing 14 months for European Green Capital exercise, visits to the website of Vitoria have doubled and the version that have seen is the one in English. In the race for the green capital, Vitoria has been imposed on other important cities such as Barcelona and Malmo (Sweden)