A seminar on the fair distribution of taxes and social security contributions in cross-border areas was held on 25 October in Geneva by the FEDRE Foundation and the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.
The MOT, and the Jacques Delors Institute have in a 50-page document compiled a summary of the five cross-border citizen consultations that they held with local partners.
Two cross-border citizens’ consultations were held on 18-19 September 2018 by the MOT, the Jacques Delors Institute, the European Cross-Border Grouping and the Metropolitan Pole of the French Genevois in Saint-Genis-Pouilly and Annemasse. Around 50 citizens attended on both days to talk about their day-to-day experience of the border and express their expectations and wishes with regard to Greater Geneva and the EU.
On 14 September the Swiss Government introduced its bill concerning the funding of “Third generation conurbation projects”.
In a press release issued in September, the European Cross-Border Grouping provides updates on the major issues of the autumn for Franco-Swiss cross-border workers, such as the “national preference lite” introduced in Switzerland, the payment of cross-border workers’ unemployment benefit by Switzerland and taxing income at source.
The French prime minister has entrusted the Prefect of the Grand Est region with a mission relating to the institutional solutions available to give form to the “longing for Alsace”.
Launched in 2017 in the Pamina Eurodistrict, the educational game “Passe-partout – Weltenbummler” (“Globetrotter”) has successfully completed an initial pilot phase, and in September 2018 begins a new phase now covering the whole of the Upper Rhine region. A project to replicate!
On 11 July 2018 in Châlons-en-Champagne in France, a meeting of the Grand Est Regional Administration Committee (CAR) was held: a veritable ‘board meeting’ of the State in the region, bringing together every two months the prefects of the region and the départements, and all of the decentralised services of the State.
The Jura Arc Cross-Border Statistical Observatory has published statistical portraits of four cooperation territories identified along the Franco-Swiss border as part of the 2016-2020 strategy of the Trans-Jura Conference.
The executives of the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin Departments have submitted to the Prefect of the Grand Est Region a proposal for an authority with special status, based on the views of 13,000 citizens.
The General Commission for Territorial Equality (CGET) has just published its 2017 annual report. An extensive chapter looks at the dynamics of cross-border employment. Border issues are also discussed in other sections of the report.
Monograph edited by Vincent Mottet, Preface by Jean Denais. Editions Slatkine, March 2018. Price: SFR 27.30. Published in French only - Original title: "Le Grand Genève dans tous ses Etats".
The General Council on the Environment and Sustainable Development, which is responsible for advising the government in the different fields of competence of the French Ministry for Ecological Transition, has devoted a special edition of its magazine "Pour mémoire" to cross-border issues in the areas of transport, the environment and energy.
To mark its 20th anniversary, the MOT produced a map of European cross-border territories. Now, on the occasion of its 21st General Assembly, it is publishing – and has had printed in the form of a large poster – a map showing the cross-border territories along France's borders.
In 2016, a wide-ranging opinion poll by HES-SO* Geneva investigated the habits and feeling of belonging to the cross-border territory of the population of Greater Geneva. In 2018, a team made up of three professors conducted the survey again, this time focusing particularly on the issue of mobility.
"They are French and live in France, but work on the other side of the border, in Italy, Switzerland or Germany. They are known as the 'transfrontaliers' [cross-border workers]… There are 500,000 of them – the highest number in Europe. But is there an entente cordiale between these French people and their neighbours?"
The new French regions have to draw up a "Schéma régional d’aménagement, de développement durable et d’égalité des territoires" (SRADDET – Regional Spatial Planning, Sustainable Development and Territorial Equality Plan). In order to set out a unifying political project for its territory, the Grand Est Region has chosen to place the cross-border dimension at the heart of its actions and to involve its cross-border partners in drawing it up.
The 2018 edition of the European Conference on the Energy Transition took place on 30-31 January and 1 February in the territory of Greater Geneva, a cross-border first for this event that every year brings together more than 3,500 professionals in the areas of energy and sustainable development. The conference also provided the opportunity to sign a cross-border agreement on air quality in Greater Geneva.
"The regions and countries that border the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Region are very attractive to its inhabitants, businesses and territorial authorities." The Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Economic, Social and Environmental Council has attempted to understand the dynamics at work in the neighbouring territories and their impact on the region, in an 84-page document entitled "From good neighbourly relations to a development strategy".
The "Rencontres franco-suisses de l’économie et de l’innovation en Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes", an ‘economy and innovation fair’, was held for the first time in Lyon on 15 January 2018.
On 10 December 2017, the elected representatives of the Basel trinational conurbation had the pleasure of opening tram line 3 linking the centre of Basel-Stadt (CH) to the railway station of Saint-Louis (F). With this tram line it is now possible to travel from Saint-Louis station to Basel city centre in under 15 minutes.
The Regional Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Ceser) of the Grand Est region has published a study looking at the reduction of cross-border obstacles in the Grand Est region.
The Cross-Border Jura Arc Forum celebrated the 10th anniversary of its creation on Saturday 21 October 2017 at the town hall of Le Russey in the Haut-Doubs Department.
Following the signing on 27 September 2016 of the framework agreement on cross-border health cooperation between France and Switzerland, the first morning of reflection organised by the Trans-Jura Conference, which brought together elected officials and cross-border health cooperation stakeholders, aimed to take stock of existing cross-border cooperation in the field of health and to determine the desired areas for future cooperation.
On 19 June 2017, new conventions were signed between the President of the Council of State of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, François Longchamp, and the President of the Agglomeration community of Annemasse ,Christian Dupessey, enabling the Swiss Confederation’s participation in the financing of 3 Greater Geneva flagship projects, at a level of 26 million euros.
