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The MOT network in Besançon

Three roundtables structured the discussions:

• 1. In the first, cooperation between universities was highlighted as a resource to enhance the standing of the region and metropolitan area concerned, as well as for the construction of Euroregional citizenship.

• 2. Cooperation initiatives in the economic sphere are perhaps not self-evident in the competitive environment in which companies operate, and are fostered by methods of working shared between public and private players that are still being developed. Nevertheless, their contribution to territorial development is unquestionable. Cédric Bôle, the Mayor of Morteau, thus returned, in the second roundtable, to the common issues relating to flows of cross-border workers, the most important economic link. In this session, Françoise Delcasso-Dejoux, head of the Pyrénées-Orientales chamber of commerce and industry, analysed the benefits and expertise that private-sector players involved in renewable energies are able to bring to the government of Andorra.

• 3. Healthcare was the subject of the last roundtable. The presentation of several Franco-Swiss and Franco-German projects for the development of innovative preventive and curative tools highlighted as yet little-exploited areas for cooperation, such as the prevention of work-related diseases.

Having brought together nearly 90 participants from the Franco-Swiss region, other French borders and the European Commission, the day initiated a cross-cutting and multi-level dialogue aimed at providing operational solutions, which the MOT is planning to make permanent in 2020 by means of a dedicated working group.

The presentations are available to members by clicking here [FR].

Read the editorial by Pascal Curie, Vice-President of the Greater Besançon Metropolis in charge of forward planning, regional development and strategy for the territory: click here.

^{Photo: Eric Chatelain, GBM}