More than 100 participants met in Chaves, Portugal, on 12 March 2009 for the first thematic seminar of the "EGTC" URBACT project, organized by one of the six partner conurbations of the project: Eurocidade Chaves-Verín. Welcomed by the mayor of Chaves, João Gonçalves Batista, and the mayor of Verín, Juan Manuel Jimenez, the participants discussed the means of strengthening the internal governance of cross-border conurbations. Other public figures present included the Portuguese secretary of state for regional development, Rui Nuno Baleiras, the President of the Diputación de Ourense, José Luis Baltar, and elected representatives of the Frankfurt (Oder)/Slubice cross-border conurbation.
The seminar identified recurrent problems and common solutions for improving this “internal governance” of cross-border conurbations.
Among the problems or obstacles encountered in the territories, the points highlighted by the partners included:
- cross-border conurbation projects do not receive sufficient recognition and consideration in overall policies at national and European levels;
- linkage between the political level and the operational level must be strengthened;
- the formation of a joint structure (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) for example) is not enough: the most difficult part is to make the instrument work on the basis of an overall strategy and structuring projects.
The need for a strong political commitment
The impetus imparted by political leaders is essential; their “cross-border vision” drives the cooperation. Political action is inseparable from the technical teams which implement the political decisions. The need for a stronger link between these two levels was strongly emphasized. The "EGTC" project partners recommended the organization of discussions at European level between elected representatives and civil servants of cross-border territories to strengthen this link and generate a genuine European and cross-border administrative culture.
The need to reinforce the operational teams
The success of cross-border cooperation is based to a very large extent on the quality of the operational teams that implement it. The impact of the operational teams must be reinforced, not only by bringing them closer to the political decision centres but also by introducing training courses intended to develop their language skills and their knowledge of the border territories, cultures, and legal and administrative frameworks.
A governance structure that must be made to work
The project partners also emphasized the fact that, beyond the establishment itself of a governance structure, the challenge lies in the definition of practical projects that the structure will implement and the financial resources available to it for its action. EGTC (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation), Eurodistrict or straightforward cooperation agreement: the formulas vary according to political impetus, the size of the authorities and the magnitude of the projects. There is no single governance model, even though the impact and the legitimacy of the EGTC is an asset in terms of visibility in the European Union, as the partners emphasized. In this context, the partners foregrounded the need to involve all the key entities of the territory (private sector, civil society, etc.) in the governance structure. Involvement of the local population is a fundamental factor in the success of a cross-border conurbation project. This aspect will also be one of the topics of the next project seminar, which will take place in Lille in October 2009.
* Expertising Governance for Transfrontier Conurbations, www.urbact.eu/egtc
** Eurometropole "Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai" (FR/BE), Frankfurt (Oder)/Slubice (DE/PL), Eurocidade Chaves-Verín (PT/ES), Ister-Granum EGTC (HU/SVK), Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau (FR/DE), Trinational Eurodistrict Basel (CH/FR/DE).
Source: Cross-border news, No.48, March 2009
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