The European Committee of the Regions has just published its annual "EGTC Monitoring Report". This publication looks at developments in existing EGTCs and the new ones set up in 2017, as well as implementation of the European regulation on EGTCs. This year, it has focused particularly on the effects of the regulation on regions and cities where EGTCs are active.
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.
Citizens' consultations are among President Emmanuel Macron's flagship proposals to give fresh impetus to Europe and "the link between its peoples and European construction". In France, they were launched in April and will continue until October 2018.
A mission on deepening Franco-German cross-border cooperation, under the aegis of the Minister in charge of European Affairs, Nathalie Loiseau, has just been entrusted to the MP for the Bas-Rhin Department, Sylvain Waserman. The aim is to think about how renewing the Elysée Treaty would help to further develop Franco-German cross-border cooperation. A questionnaire for citizens is open until 30 April.
The MOT's Forum was launched in November 2017. It enables players involved in cross-border cooperation to exchange views on different topics as well as on obstacles to cooperation.
MAREA ("Modélisation et Aide à la décision face aux Risques côtiers en Euskal Atlantique" – Modelling and Assistance with Decision-Making faced with Coastal Risks in Atlantic Euskal) is a cross-border research project aimed at gaining a better understanding of storm episodes on the Basque coast, in order to predict risks of coastal flooding and erosion.
Editorial by Jean-René Etchegaray, President of the Basque Country Conurbation Community ; and presentation of the MAREA project: "A cross-border project to predict coastal risks in the Basque Country".
More than 100 people – elected representatives, technicians and civil society players – took part in the event on 22 March to launch the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis's "Parc Bleu".
On 20 March 2018, at a summit meeting, France and Luxembourg signed four bilateral agreements, including one to strengthen cooperation with respect to cross-border transport. These are "a set of agreements that have a concrete impact on the daily lives of our citizens. Our objective is joint and equal financing of a number of transport infrastructures," explained the French Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe.
The 2017 report of the ONERC – National Observatory on the Effects of Global Warming entitled "Towards a second plan for adaptation to climate change in France – Issues and recommendations" has been published. The MOT wrote section 32 of the report on the cross-border dimension.
A new European Grouping of Cross-Border Cooperation (EGTC) was set up on 13 March 2018. Called "Pirineos-Pyrénées" ("Pyrenees" in Spanish and French), it groups together the main territorial authorities of the centre of the Pyrenees mountain range: the Diputación de Huesca, the Hautes-Pyrénées and Pyrénées-Atlantiques Departments and the Government of Aragon.
The MOT has contributed to this publication produced by the French Urban Planning Agencies Network (FNAU), in two chapters: "Urban hubs and cross-border cooperation – a tool for dialogue across borders" and "How is inter-territoriality dealt with in other European countries?"
An academic publication edited by François Moullé, lecturer and agrégé in geography. In the collection "Parcours Universitaires", Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2017.
The magazine Raisonnance of the International Association of Francophone Mayors has published an article by Olivier Denert, the MOT's Secretary General, entitled "Le transfrontalier en Europe : un cas particulier du développement territorial et porteur de bonnes pratiques sur d'autres continents" ("Cross-border co-operation in Europe: a particular instance of territorial development and a vector of good practices in other continents").
The intergovernmental working group on innovative solutions to cross-border obstacles met for the sixth time on 6 February 2018. It is working on the proposal for a new European tool dedicated to cross-border cooperation: the European Cross-Border Convention (ECBC).
A study, launched within the framework of a European project,* sets out a comprehensive assessment of cross-border employment in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Euskadi Navarra Euroregion.
The Committee of the Regions has launched the call for applications for the 2018 EGTC award "Building Europe across borders". The deadline for submission of applications is 16 April 2018.
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.
This report by France's General Inspectorate of Social Affairs sets out around 20 proposals to proactively increase the European mobility of apprentices; they fall within the competence of the Ministries of Labour and National Education, the social partners and the regions, in the context of the ongoing discussions on the reform of apprenticeships.
The MMUST project (Multimodal model and scenarios for cross-border mobility) has just been approved by the Greater Region Interreg VA programme. It is an ambitious project that aims to simulate cross-border movements between France, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium.
"Beyond the speeches and symbols, what meaning can the concept of a cross-border region have? By defining the region as an identity-based, territorial and institutional construction that endures over time, this work identifies and interrogates the specificities of this process in the cross-border setting. The issues are explored using the emblematic example of the Greater Region, which launched a long-term strategy in 2008 involving Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Wallonia."
As part of the "UniGR - Centre for Border Studies" project, the six member universities (Kaiserslautern, Liège, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Saarland and Trier) of the University of the Greater Region (UniGR) are going to set up a "European centre of skills and resources in border studies" with international visibility.
The eighth meeting of the European Parliament's working group on cross-border cooperation, chaired by the MEP Anne Sander, Vice-President of the MOT, took place on 28 February and was devoted to the topic of higher education and research.
"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".
