What does the establishment of a Eurodistrict bring to your area?
The establishment of a Eurodistrict has the advantage of providing an organizational framework for bringing the various institutional levels (municipalities, departments, region and state on the French side) together. Local authorities can pool their competencies and carry out French-German territorial cooperation projects on a larger scale. The municipalities, the initiators of the project, occupy a privileged position within the framework of the Freiburg region/Central and Southern Alsace Eurodistrict. Because of their closeness to the population, they want to implement actions creating effective added value for all the citizens. They are well placed to identify the institutional obstacles to mobility in the border area and are ready to propose practical solutions with a view to eliminating them.
The border effect and the related obstacles to mobility, despite the efforts made in recent years, still hamper full exploitation of the development potential of our French-German region. And this is far from negligible in the perspective of a possible increase of our competitiveness in an international context. We hope that the establishment of a Eurodistrict will provide a new stimulus to our territory and encourage the emergence of a genuine common territorial identity there.
What are the first projects backed by this Eurodistrict?
The priority projects identified by the Eurodistrict steering committee concern transport (Mulhouse-Freiburg rail link, Colmar-Breisach-Freiburg public transport link, Sélestat-Waldkirch shuttle bus), health (cross-border disability card, freedom of choice of in- and out-patient medical care), professional and between-schools training, exchanges between local public services, environmental education, mapping, provision of bilingual forms and the establishment of a collaborative platform.
Source: Cross-border news, Nr.28, July 2006
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