News
Illustrative projects in the area of cross-border economic development
October 2015
The Kiosk Office, the first cross-border co-working space, was set up in Offenburg in July 2014 and in Strasbourg in early 2015. This meeting place for entrepreneurs from either side of the border fulfils a real need observed in the territory (administrative and legal advice, networking, etc.). Since it was established, 600 people have visited it and two French-German businesses have been set up.
Bihartean has brought together the Bayonne-Pays Basque and Gipuzkoa chambers of commerce and industry since 2010 to support businesses in their cross-border projects, develop joint economic activities and design a range of cross-border training. In 2014, 246 companies took part in B2B meetings.
In the Euregio Meuse-Rhine (Germany-Netherlands-Belgium), the objective of the TTC project is to set up cross-border consortia of SMEs and to develop innovative projects in the life sciences, healthcare, innovative materials, ICT and energy sectors. The project's results are very encouraging and provide an example to follow with respect to accessing private funding.
The InnovARC project, which was born out of a partnership between the chamber of commerce and industry of the Doubs Department and arcjurassien.ch, helps to stimulate innovation in the microtechnologies sector in the French-Swiss Jura Arc.
The Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, which is made up of the Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon Regions and the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, put in place a Euroregional Innovation Strategy in 2014 for priority sectors (water, e-health, agri-food and tourism).
The GAT Caraïbes Cluster, set up in September 2012, brings together public- and private-sector players to develop innovation, trade, logistics and transport in the whole region of the Caribbean, whose maritime borders offer an as yet little-explored opportunity for development.
The Regio Pamina Eurodistrict is drawing up for early 2016 a territorial component of the agreement on cross-border apprenticeships signed two years ago at the level of the Upper Rhine. This local approach is aimed at achieving a better match between the available labour force and the needs of businesses in terms of professional training.
These projects were presented during the final conference of the MOT project on cross-border economic development.
More info
The outputs highlighted other innovative projects:
- Tandem (FR-BE)
- Seed4Start (FR-BE-LU-DE)
- Framework agreement on cooperation regarding French-German job-seeker placement (FR-DE)
- Strategic workforce planning (SWP) for the ports of Strasbourg and Kehl (FR-DE)
- Interregional Council of the Chambers of Trades of the Greater Region (FR-BE-LU-DE)
- Euro3 (FR-BE)
- GCS “Crossborder Cluster Stimulation” (NL-DE-BE).
The project factsheets
More info on the project
