Willy Demeyer is a Belgian politician and mayor of Liège since 1999. Before he became the mayor of Liège, Demeyer has been Deputy mayor for ten years. Since 2007, mayor of Liège is also President of the Belgian Forum for Urban Safety. The European Forum for Urban Security (EFUS) is a non-governmental organization established in 1987 in Barcelona under the auspices of the Council of Europe supporting a network of more than 250 European local authorities in 16 countries. Since the beginning of his mayoral term, Willy Demeyer has been dedicated to transforming the city of Liège and making it more attractive to its citizens and visitors. He launched a new development strategy for his city’s transition and the metropolitan area. The strategy, called the “City Project”, is part of a broader action plan dedicated to enhancing citizens´ quality of life. Under his mayoral term, the city of Liège has been developing a large-scale project promoting local, sustainable, and resilient food production in the Liège ‘Food Land’ belt for nearly ten years. This ambitious goal aims to meet 50% of the food demand in Liège locally, in the best possible ecological and social conditions, within the next 25 to 30 years. Mayor of Liège is also President of the “Group for the Economic Redeployment of Liège” (GRE) whose mission is to develop the conditions necessary for the creation of sustainable jobs in Liège province. Last year, Demeyer also started working on making Belgium’s largest eco-district located in the city of Liège. This whole project revolves around soft mobility. The new district is made with no cars allowed on the site. This is an ecological and sustainable project with many open spaces such as parks, gardens, gardens and waterways which represent a little over 80% of the total surface of the area. (photo credit: wikimedia)