News
The cross-border dimension on "the French Government's agenda"
April 2019
Around Robert Herrmann, the MOT’s President and President of the Strasbourg Eurometropolis, the representatives of the French Government at the MOT’s general assembly emphasised the favourable political context for cross-border cooperation. According to Jacques Champagne de Labriolle, Ambassador for Cooperation and Border Issues at the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the cross-border dimension is now “at the heart of the French Government’s concerns”.
The Government wishes to position itself as a “facilitator of initiatives”. The Aachen Treaty provides for the introduction of experimentation on the Franco-German border; this will be complemented by the creation of the European territorial authority of Alsace. These advances show the Government’s openness with respect to experimenting and taking account of the specificity of cross-border settings. The “Franco-German cross-border cooperation committee provided for by the Treaty will be the body that ensures coordination of players and the political level, in a border-by-border approach that is designed to be duplicated”.
In concluding the general assembly, Serge Morvan, General Commissioner for Territorial Equality (CGET), presented the progress made in setting up the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion, which will replace the CGET in 2019. He passed on a message from the Minister Jacqueline Gourault to the network: “The MOT is an indispensable tool – a fine structure for technical assistance, creating networks and producing resources that is recognised in France and across Europe.” Lastly, he set out the challenges for the new agency: “It is an agency that is born from the idea that projects are created in the territories but that they struggle in terms of feasibility due to a lack of resources and technical expertise, the complexity of standards and rules, and the large number of interlocutors. The purpose of the new agency will be to simplify this by coordinating administrations at national level and positioning itself as an interlocutor for territories, via the prefects.” He emphasised that the cross-border dimension will have “a cross-cutting place in this mechanism”. More info
More info in the press release [FR]
More info on the MOT’s general assembly
