Conurbations 

• Skåne County

• Counties of Copenhagen, Frederiksborg, Roskilde, Western Zealand, Storstrøm
• Bornholm Regional Municipality

Number of inhabitants:

Around of 3,500,000 inhabitants.

Historical and geographical context

Thanks to the Öresund bridge-tunnel (16km long) the cities of Copenhagen and Malmö are linked in less than 30 minutes by train and 50 minutes by car. They attract 150,000 and 50,000 commuters respectively per day. But these flows remain proportionally low when compared to the regional potential. Today more than 10,000 people cross the bridge daily for professional reasons.

 A project which allows the emergence of strong cross-border cooperation: the Öresund bridge

Advanced cooperation

A multi-level administrative structure: The Öresund cooperation project is unusual in that it functions at a regional rather than a city level. The administrative structure of the Öresund Committee appears to be one of the most advanced in Europe. It combines all institutional levels, local to national as well as the Interreg technical secretariat, particularly to coordinate cross-border projects. However, the Öresund Committee remains an informal structure. According to the OECD report it is a form of “governance without government”.

Decisions by consensus: Decision making works via consensus and steering is assured by the Öresund Committee.

Symbolic projects 

Örestat was given the task of assuring statistic monitoring at a cross-border level.

Öresund Labour Market Council (ÖAR) aims to monitor the number of border workers and enable access to cross-border employment.

Medicon Valley wishes to enable and promote greater cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Öresund region in the biotechnology sector.

Copenhagen-Malmö Port aims to improve cooperation between the Malmö and Copenhagen ports whilst also strengthening their economic integration.

Unique features of the territorial project

A cross-border metropolitan area?: The Öresund Region has benefited from the spread of the Danish capital, but the structure of the metropolitan areas makes cross-border integration more complicated because of possible tensions due to the territorial competences of the different parties.

States are present but to an insufficient degree: The national strategies of the two nations hardly take this cross-border cooperation into account.

A fiscal compensation system: Since the opening of the bridge-tunnel many Danes have moved to Sweden which, due to Danish law, spawns a large fiscal imbalance. Although an agreement has been reached (compensation payments to Sweden) it does not solve the initial problem.

A governance structure without legal entity status or contractual power: The absence of a formal structure does not impede the effectiveness of cooperation but in the long term it could provoke fragmentation of cross-border projects.