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Seminars in Strasbourg

Council of Europe seminar

On 16 and 17 September in Strasbourg the Council of Europe headquarters was the venue for a seminar on the prospects for effective transfrontier cooperation in Europe, organised by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in collaboration with the Kehl Euro-Institut and the Pôle européen d’administration publique (PEAP).
It was attended by around 60 cross-border cooperation researchers and practitioners. Representatives of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities included its president Herwig van Staa, its general secretary Andreas Kiefer, the chair of the governance committee Karl-Heinz Lambertz, the rapporteur on cooperation Breda Pecan and the president of the Chamber of Regions Nataliya Romanova. Representatives of DG REGIO, the MOT and the AEBR also attended. Jean Peyrony, director general of the MOT, spoke on multi-level governance of cross-border cooperation, illustrated by the role of the CECICN and the Budapest Platform.
The discussions covered three topics: legal aspects of transfrontier cooperation, evidence-based transfrontier cooperation, and capacity-building and training for transfrontier cooperation. The principles that were emphasised included: the need for mutual recognition of legal and administrative systems between neighbouring States, the idea of de minimis rules to be defined for transfrontier areas, and the necessity of defining the needs for transfrontier data and for sharing existing data. Concluding the seminar, Karl-Heinz Lambertz stressed the three conditions for cooperation: having the right, the willingness and the ability to cooperate.
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Final conference of the PAT-TEIN project

The final conference of the PAT-TEIN (Professionalizing Actors of Cross-Border Cooperation within the Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network) project was held following the seminar, on 18 September at the European Parliament.
The project leader, European network TEIN, in which the MOT and the AEBR are associated partners, has worked for two years on the transfer of a training methodology developed by the Euro-Institut, the network’s lead partner. The results of this work were presented at the conference, including four training tools taking account of the specific aspects of each border. In conclusion, the participants stressed the need to train and guide those involved in cross-border cooperation at all levels, essential conditions for overcoming the difficulties and developing the potential of the cross-border regions!
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