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ECBM becomes FCBS: the Commission's new proposal has been adopted!
January 2024
On December 12th, 2023, the Commission adopted its amended proposal for a regulation, formerly known as "ECBM", renamed "FCBS" ("Facilitating Cross-Border Solutions"). Its aim: to relaunch the creation of this European tool to "facilitate the use of cross-border solutions" by "helping Member States to remove obstacles that affect the daily lives of citizens living in cross-border regions of Europe".
The new proposal illustrates the efforts being made "to relay the aspirations and needs of 150 million European citizens living in border regions", according to the report by Sandro Gozi MEP, who recalled "the invisible but omnipresent bureaucratic wall that affects their daily lives".
The creation of cross-border coordination points will constitute a new service capable of assessing "any request submitted by border stakeholders on potential obstacles". In the event of an existing obstacle, and in the absence of a bilateral or international cooperation agreement, "Member States may then apply the cross-border facilitation tool, a voluntary standard procedure designed to remove administrative and legal obstacles in cross-border regions". Finally, a network of cross-border coordination points working alongside the Commission will create "a forum for exchanging best practice and sharing knowledge".
This proposal is in line with the objective of the single European market. According to a study financed by the Commission, "the removal of these obstacles would considerably improve its functioning". According to the same study, "eliminating 20% of current legal and administrative barriers would increase GDP by 2% in cross-border regions and create more than a million jobs".
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