The Longwy European Development Pole, situated at the border between France, Luxembourg and Belgium, forms a cross-border conurbation covering 22 municipalities (in the 3 countries) and over 127,000 inhabitants. For many years specialised in the mining and steel industries, the conurbation has, since the 1970's, been confronted with an economic reconversion crisis and the dismantlement of the Belgian plants, then the French ones, which lasted until the 1990's.

In order to accompany this change, in 1985 the French, Belgian and Luxembourg states signed an agreement to create jobs on former industrial sites and in this way allowed for the creation of technological territorial management tools. However, the need for more engagement at local level led the municipalities in the cross-border conurbation to create the cross-border association of the Longwy European Pole conurbation in 1996. This is a unique initiative in Europe and involves active collaboration at and between different decision making levels (European, national, cross-border and local). The initial goal is to favour the establishment of labour companies to meet the industrial crisis. The constitution of a place for dialogue and debate between all the public and private actors concerned allowed for urban plans to be defined which came to fruit by way of the signing of a conurbation charter by the members of the association in 1993.


In order to set up its urban planning policy, the European Development Pole’s cross-border association has since the 1990's built on the observation work on the territory carried out by the Urban Planning Observatory (now Agape), the first tri-national urban planning agency. The initial tasks carried out by the agency concerned the setting up of a local programme of the habitat and the follow-up of the cross-border conurbation study project.

The European Development Pole’s cross-border association has also undertaken significant work in the  fields of the environment, tourism, training, culture and urban planning.

Nowadays, Luxembourg is the main employment pole in the region. It is estimated that close to one half of the active population in the Franco-Belgian sectors (i.e. 15,000 cross-border workers of the 33,000 active workers) cross the border every day to work in the Grand Duchy. The population of the Belgian and French territories of the conurbation which appear to be becoming the labour force reserves of the Luxembourg municipalities is registering a significant growth, linked to the important migratory flows. This growth is the result of a tertiarisation of jobs linked to a residential economy (commerce, services), the dynamic of which is fed by two main factors: the catch-up effect accumulated over the years of conversion and the significant purchasing power of the cross-border workers.

The future of the cross-border conurbation is closely linked to a large-scale project, known as the “Belval” project, located within the same cross-border urban area at Esch-sur-Alzette. The purpose of this project is to transform an abandoned steel site into a tertiary pole aimed at accommodating 34,000 people when 20,000 tertiary jobs are relocated there, which will include the University of Luxembourg.