During the 1st Borders and People festival in Thionville on 6 and 7 November 2009, Thionville town council and the Institut Pierre Werner organised three panel discussions on the topic of cross-border realities, which brought together the public, researchers, institutional and association representatives and politicians.
The discussions showed that cross-border cooperation is meaningful only if it is founded on real projects. This is the case in Europe, for example on issues of the environment (natural spaces, Baltic Sea) or of education (e.g. cooperation between Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic). It was mentioned several times that the Lisbon Treaty restated the importance of the European territorial cohesion objective, and through this the objective of cross-border cooperation. The ultimate aim of cross-border relations is "territorial convergence", as opposed to simple management of flows likely to accentuate economic and social imbalances. In the case of the Greater Region, centred on Luxemburg, Romain Diederich, spatial planning director at the Luxemburg ministry of sustainable development and infrastructure, restated the objective of developing a polycentric metropolitan region so that growth benefits all the partners.
The question of the relevant actors in this cooperation was then asked. The importance of the coordination of a territory on a cross-border scale was highlighted here, and MOT director Dr. Hans-Günther Clev noted that the EGTC (European grouping of territorial cooperation) was a very good European instrument for this purpose, since it could include a wide range of partners, from state to municipal level.
Source: Cross-border news, No. 54, November 2009
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