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Towards a cross-border circular economy?

With contributions from regional institutions (the Grand Est Region, Baden-Württemberg Landtag, Land of Rhineland-Palatinate and Canton of Basel-Country), national institutions (Luxembourg Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning) and European ones (the Commission, DG Environment and DG REGIO), the day was an opportunity to highlight the cross-cutting approach and different levels of action that the circular economy is based on.

While studies and initial cooperation initiatives can be supported by the forthcoming Interreg programme cycle, this will not be sufficient to deal with all of the issues of research and development, or of convergence of processing and transformation infrastructures that the circular economy in a cross-border setting requires. To address this, players need to formulate effective common strategic commitments.

The challenge is a major one, as is illustrated by the initial work carried out across the Greater Region to align in the cross-border setting objectives with respect to conservation of soil and resources, cohesion and employment, economic development and agriculture. The representatives of the European Commission reaffirmed Europe’s commitment to expand its work in this area, within the framework of the Green New Deal.

The MOT’s President, Christian Dupessey, concluded the discussions by highlighting the usefulness of the MOT’s network and the pioneering work of Greater Geneva on this issue. He underlined that “the circular economy isn’t a fashion, it’s a different way of seeing development”, and emphasised the need to support economic players in order to foster the implementation of cross-border approaches for the sector. This initial series of discussions will thus be the first of many!