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Special Dossier on the European elections: "the European grouping - a tool for cross-border cooperation" by Alain Lamassoure, Vice-President of MOT

By Alain Lamassoure, Vice-President of MOT, MEP

"Since 2006, nearly 50 European Groupings of Cross-Border Cooperation (EGTCs) have been created in the European Union. A third of them have a presence in France, such as the Aquitaine Euskadi EGTC, which was set up in 2011.

The EGTC is to territorial authorities what the status of “European company” is to commercial companies. It enables territorial authorities from different EU Member States to group together in a permanent manner in order to carry out cross-border projects, by virtue of having a fully-fledged legal personality and financial autonomy. This structure has proved to be extremely well-suited to the needs of the different cross-border players: it now concerns over 10 million French citizens across 20% of France’s territory.

The projects carried out are very varied and have included, for example, the conversion of an old building into a cross-border snow-clearing centre on the Portalet Pass, and studies on the potential for the development of public transport in the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis. This status makes it possible to implement unprecedented joint policies, such as the binational hospital in Cerdanya, which provides joint hospital services in a French-Spanish area comprising 30,000 inhabitants.

The fact that it can have varied members only goes to strengthen its territorial basis. The West-Vlaanderen/Flandre-Dunkerque-Côte d'Opale EGTC is for example made up of 13 partner members that bring together more than 540 districts. Lastly, an EGTC can also take on the role of managing authority for European territorial cooperation programmes within the framework of cohesion policy for the 2014-2020 period.

In the 2014-2020 period, EGTCs will therefore play a key role in the use of the €11.7 billion budget allocated to cross-border cooperation.

With the original procedure for setting up an EGTC having proved to be too unwieldy, the regulation governing it was revised last year. The new status, which will enter into force in June 2014, broadens the remit of EGTCs while at the same time making the way in which they operate more flexible.

Thus, the EGTC is constructing Europe in concrete terms, from the grassroots up. National borders, which once were battlefields, have today become the leading focuses for joint work between our reconciled peoples."

^{Photo : PPE-Parlement européen}