This publication looks at developments in EGTCs during 2016. Based on an updated overview and case studies, the report aims to highlight the EGTCs' main areas of action, their involvement in cohesion policy, and their achievements and the obstacles encountered.
The MOT took part in the fourth and final meeting of Cross-Border Review experts that took place on 15 December in Brussels.
The Territorial Observatory's 2016 Report on the topic "Employment and Territories" has just been published by the General Commission for Territorial Equality (CGET).
ITEM (Institute for Transnational and Euregional cross border cooperation and Mobility at Dutch borders) held its annual conference on 28 October 2016 in Maastricht, on the topic “Europe under pressure: effects for border regions – 25 years after the Maastricht Treaty”. The ITEM annual report, which analyses each year the impact of legislation on the border territories of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, was presented and discussed.
The work of 174 pages offers an environmental, social and economic inventory of the cross-border territory of Greater Geneva on the French-Swiss border.
Several spatial planning pilot projects (MORO), such as the one that led to the setting-up of the IMeG,* incorporating border region and cross-border considerations have been launched in Germany.
Nearly 600 people gathered for the 37th national meeting of urban planning agencies on 5-7 October in the Basque Country.
At the instigation of INSEE and its French and Belgian partners, a seminar entitled "Cross-border observation: what type of organisation for what type of actions?" was held in Tournai on 28 April 2016.
The first report of the European consultation on the obstacles and potential solutions to cross-border cooperation yields some very interesting analyses. A few elements: concerning the profile of the respondents, 84% of them live in a border region and 48% are private individuals.
With 25 years of supporting Interreg programmes for cross-border cooperation to its credit, celebrated in 2015, but aware of the progress that still needs to be made, the Commission initiated a process of identifying the obstacles that remain at the EU's internal land borders.
On 18 April 2016, the Conférence TransJurassienne (CTJ) presented its new strategy for cross-border cooperation in the territory of the French-Swiss Jura Arc.
Evaluating quality of life and the desire for "living together" in Greater Geneva is the objective of the study that has just been published by the Geneva HES-SO (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland).
DG REGIO has just published a 36-page report on the public consultation “Overcoming obstacles in border regions” carried out in autumn 2015.
This study, which has just been published on the UMS RIATE website, looks at the analysis of border regions on internal borders of the European Union with a methodological approach: How do we define border areas? How do we measure the multi-criterial territorial discontinuities? How do we qualify their evolution in time? How do we evaluate accessibility between border regions?
In the context of the Netherlands Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the House of the Dutch Provinces in Brussels hosted a seminar on 17 March 2016 on cross-border cooperation.
The publication "Systèmes Territoriaux Régionaux" ("Regional Territorial Systems") that was brought out in January 2016 by the French Federation of Public Urban Planning Agencies (the FNAU) provides an analysis of territorial issues and interrelationships in France, through the lens of legislative developments and the issues at stake in public policy. A section written by the MOT is devoted to the cross-border dimension.
The "cross-border cooperation" interregional group of the Committee of the Regions, which was set up in July 2015, held its second meeting on 11 February 2016 in Brussels.
Since September 2015, DG REGIO's cross-border cooperation unit has been carrying out a large-scale initiative known as the "Cross-Border Review" aimed at analysing the administrative and legal obstacles that persist along the European Union's internal borders.
Within the framework of its presidency of the EU Council, on 26-27 November 2015, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg brought together the European ministers responsible for territorial cohesion and urban policy for an informal meeting in Luxembourg. The discussions fed into the conclusions of the Luxembourg presidency, which is proposing actions to facilitate cross-border cooperation within the EU.
The Pas-de-Calais Department has solid relations with its British neighbours, which have resulted in many projects and the signature of a cooperation agreement with the County of Kent.
A seminar entitled "A world without borders - Refugees, cooperation and territories" was held within the framework of the ESPON 2020 programme, in cooperation with the Luxembourg presidency of the EU Council, on 8-9 December 2015 in Luxembourg.
At the instigation of the Midi-Pyrénées General Secretariat for Regional Affairs, a working seminar aimed at the decentralised government departments in the regions bordering Spain and Andorra was held on 25 November 2015 in Toulouse to discuss practices and consider new modes of organisation designed to remove the obstacles to French-Spanish-Andorran cooperation.
The Joint Secretariat of the Upper Rhine Conference and the journalist Reinhard Reck have produced a booklet to mark the 40th anniversary of the French-German-Swiss intergovernmental commission. The booklet presents the evolution, diversity and dynamism of cross-border cooperation in the Upper Rhine since the Bonn Agreement signed in 1975.
Eurobarometer surveys are analyses of public opinion by the European Commission. For the first time, a Eurobarometer survey identifies and analyses the attitudes of citizens living in border regions.
