BOSTON — Hey Bostonians: surprise. You are now part of a European pact.
You did not vote on it. You may not even have heard about it. But thanks to Mayor Michelle Wu, the city is signing onto a Budapest-born international coalition whose stated mission includes supporting refugees, addressing climate change and backing LGBT rights — alongside the mayors of Chicago and Seattle.
The coalition is called the Pact of Free Cities. It was set up in 2019 by four East European mayors who very much did not like their national governments. This week it is rolling out its biggest U.S. expansion yet, with 10 American cities signing up at once. Boston is one of them.
What did Wu actually sign Boston up for
The Pact, in its own words on its official website, is "a global network of Mayors determined to stand up for progressive values and fight against nationalistic populism."
Its five formal pillars, also from the official site:
- "Protect and promote the common values of freedom, democracy and equality."
- "Share best practices and seek solutions to common problems facing our cities."
- "Create a platform to help cities coordinate their policies."
- "Advocate for the role of cities and secure their direct funding on the EU level."
- "Keep cooperation open to other cities and entities that share the same values."
The 2019 founding declaration commits members to "protecting and promoting our common values of freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity."
In other words: an international club for mayors who would like to do mayor things, but harder, and with more pamphlets.
Where it was born — and on whose campus
The Pact was signed on December 16, 2019, at a ceremony hosted on the Budapest campus of Central European University — the school founded and endowed by George Soros, which Hungary's government had earlier forced to relocate most of its operations to Vienna.
The Pact's annual gathering is co-hosted by CEU's Democracy Institute, also based inside the Soros-founded university. No funding relationship between the Pact and the Open Society Foundations has ever been disclosed, but the institutional choreography speaks for itself.
The four founding mayors, all elected as pro-European opposition to right-populist national governments at the time:
- Gergely Karácsony, Budapest — green-left, the mayor in open conflict with Viktor Orbán's Fidesz government.
- Rafał Trzaskowski, Warsaw — centrist liberal Civic Platform, opposing Poland's then-ruling Law and Justice party.
- Zdeněk Hřib, Prague — Czech Pirate Party, pro-EU.
- Matúš Vallo, Bratislava — independent progressive backed by Slovakia's pro-EU opposition.
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Mr. Hřib told the Associated Press at the signing that populism offers "a simple and wrong answer to the problems" facing cities. The mayors then went home to govern their actual cities, where the snow still needed plowing.
What Pact members actually do
The Pact's own announcement of the U.S. expansion this week helpfully points to specific Pact-aligned actions to admire:
- Budapest Pride. When Hungary's national government restricted LGBT public events, Mr. Karácsony rebranded Budapest Pride as a municipal event so it could continue.
- Wu's congressional testimony. Ms. Wu's defense of Boston's immigrant communities before the House Oversight Committee last year — alongside the mayors of Chicago, Denver and New York — is cited as exemplary.
- Minneapolis vs. ICE. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's order banning the use of city property as ICE staging grounds is held up as a model.
- Climate. Pact mayors lobbied against Poland's then-government refusing the EU's 2050 carbon-neutrality target and pushed for EU Green Deal funding to flow directly to cities rather than national capitals.
Wu warmed it up at the Munich Security Conference
Ms. Wu publicly previewed Boston's Pact participation at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, describing the coalition as a "value-driven city network committed to rebuilding and reinforcing democratic values."
The Munich Security Conference is where heads of state and defense ministers debate NATO posture and Russia policy. It is now apparently also where mayors of American cities of about 650,000 people announce European club memberships.
So who is Wu standing next to?
Boston's new Pact partners come with a paper trail.
Seattle's mayor is a self-described democratic socialist. Katie Wilson — co-founder of Seattle's Transit Riders Union and architect of the city's 2020 "JumpStart" payroll tax on Amazon and other large employers — took office on January 1, 2026, after defeating incumbent Bruce Harrell by roughly 2,000 votes, the thinnest mayoral margin in recent Seattle history. She backed defunding the police in 2020, and now talks instead about "reforming" it. Within a month of taking office she signed an executive order barring ICE from city-owned property — parks, garages, the Seattle Center — and directed Seattle police to "investigate, verify, and document" any ICE activity in the city. The Seattle police union promptly said the policy "puts public safety at risk, sidelines police." She is now floating a city-level capital gains tax and rent stabilization.
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Chicago's mayor is polling at 14 percent. Brandon Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, has been called by Newsweek possibly "the least popular politician in America." His signature real estate transfer tax referendum was rejected by his own voters in March 2024. The city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars housing more than 50,000 migrants. Last October he erupted at a reporter for using the term "illegal alien," calling it "racist, nasty language" and comparing it to slavery. The Immigration Reform Law Institute last year named him "America's worst sanctuary mayor."
This is who Wu is now sharing top billing with on a European pro-democracy stage.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts
Critics see this signing a little differently — as the platonic ideal of out-of-touch.
Massachusetts taxpayers spent more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2025 housing migrant and homeless families through the state's Emergency Assistance shelter program — at roughly $3,389 per family per week, according to the latest state report. That is on top of a $500 million FY24 supplemental the Legislature pushed through to keep the program from collapsing.
On energy, Massachusetts has the third-highest residential electricity rates in the country, behind only Hawaii and California — running roughly 72 percent above the national average. Eversource won approval this fall to raise winter gas bills by an average of $41 a month for some 640,000 Massachusetts customers. Critics tie the state's rate environment to its 2050 net-zero mandate, aggressive renewable portfolio standard, RGGI carbon pricing, and a long-standing freeze on new natural gas pipeline infrastructure. Even Governor Maura Healey called the Eversource hike "outrageous".
So while constituents are opening winter utility bills and the state continues to spend billions on the shelter program, Ms. Wu was at the Munich Security Conference signing the city of Boston up to a European coalition built around even more of the same.
The full new American class
The 10 U.S. cities joining the Pact of Free Cities this week, in alphabetical order:
- Beaverton, Ore.
- Boston, Mass.
- Chicago, Ill.
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Montgomery, Ala.
- Oklahoma City, Okla.
- San Antonio, Texas
- San Diego, Calif.
- Seattle, Wash.
Los Angeles, the only previous U.S. signatory, joined in 2021. That brings the U.S. roster to 11.
Welcome aboard, Boston.
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