10 U.S. mayors join European pact to defend democracy

Ten U.S. mayors have joined a European alliance built to defend democratic norms from city halls outward, bringing Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Oklahoma, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, Montgomery and Beaverton into the Pact of Free Cities and pushing the network to 50 member cities.

The pact was founded in 2019 by the mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw as a way to promote democratic values and share ideas across borders. Its annual meeting last week in Bratislava, Slovakia, made clear how much of the alliance’s work now centers on practical coordination: mayors comparing tactics, backing one another during political fights and using city leadership to push back when national governments narrow civic space.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said he joined because of what he described as the Trump administration’s backsliding on democratic institutions and values, along with damage to long-standing relationships with European counterparts. The additions give U.S. cities a larger role in a network that has increasingly framed municipal government as one of the few levels of power still close enough to residents to test how far democratic norms can be defended in daily public life.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, unanimously elected as the pact’s new chair, said local democracy is under growing pressure in the United States and Europe. She pointed to the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu as an example of how city leaders themselves have become targets when national politics turn more authoritarian. Her selection also signals a more explicit effort by the pact to connect city governments facing legal and political pressure in different countries.

At the Bratislava meeting, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony pointed to one of the clearest examples of that strategy in practice. He said Viktor Orbán’s attempt to ban Budapest’s annual Pride parade backfired, because the city took over the march and recast it as a fight for free speech and free assembly. The pact had previously supported Budapest during that battle, and Halsema took part in the Budapest Pride march.

The broader case for municipal alliances is sharpening as well. The German Marshall Fund of the United States says democracy has declined worldwide for 19 consecutive years, citing Freedom House, and argues that cities are now on the front lines of democratic backsliding. More than 250 mayors in more than 50 countries signed the Global Declaration of Mayors for Democracy in 2023, underscoring how local leaders are trying to build a transnational counterweight where national institutions are under strain. The pact’s next meeting is scheduled for Amsterdam.