The 22nd of October 2010, within the framework of the MED EMPORION project and coinciding with the celebration in Barcelona of the Market of Markets Fair, was signed the MANIFESTO ON MARKETS OF BARCELONA, assembling the cities of Marseille, Torino, Genoa, Florence, Istanbul and Barcelona. Many other cities, like Budapest, Venice, Lisbon or London, among many others, expressed also their interest in joining the initiative.

 

This Manifesto, attached to this new, will become a document of collaboration, exchange of good practices and commitment to promote together the social and economic values provided by markets.

In their opinion, the Markets have a role as a social backbone (recovery, spreading and exemplifying specific civil values) that justifies local entities' increasing dedication to promoting them and turning them into the transmitters of civil values to the population.

Moreover, markets are "structural elements of commerce of our cities, generating business dynamism and employment", and because of they very nature, they concentrate many SME and professional technical retail skills, which are currently dying out.

The objectives of this association are:

- To improve knowledge transfer in the management of markets, fostering their mutual cooperation.

- To drive the modernisation of markets and the services they provide, while improving competitiveness.

- To roll out market management support instruments.

- To promote markets as tools to provide an economic stimulus to the neighbourhood.

- To measure, compare and assess results, employing mutually agreed common indicators.

- To define new proposals for markets based on the reality surrounding them and adapted to these new times.

- To build on their determination to work together, establishing national and European strategies to place markets squarely on the political agendas of their respective states and the European Union. EMPORION members will advance with the appropriate definition of rules, policies and programmes, with allocation of their corresponding resources, which will have particular affect on and influence in the activity of markets.