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Towards a new era of cooperation in the Basque Country
September 2023
With the joint hosting of the cross-border start of the Tour de France in 2023 and the second edition of the cross-border summer universities, there is a great deal going on in the French-Spanish Basque Country. At a meeting in July, elected representatives from both sides of the border emphasised their desire to take cooperation further.
Joint hosting of a major cross-border start
The first three stages of the world's third biggest sporting event took place in the Basque Country. They are the fruit of a joint bid supported since 2019 by Jean-René Etchegaray, President of the Basque Country Conurbation Community (CAPB) and Iñigo Urkullu, President of the Government of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. On July 1st, 2023, the Tour started in Bilbao and covered 580 km in the Basque Country before ending in Bayonne.
To celebrate this major cross-border sporting event, the CAPB organised a conference on "Cycling in the Basque Country, a shared passion", which was held on the 27th of June. Key figures spoke about the history of cycling in the Basque Country (André Darrigade, Ainhoa Ostolaza, Haimar Zubeldia) and presented the North Basque Country cycling team.
More info [FR]
Press article (Sud Ouest) [FR]
Second edition of the cross-border summer universities
For the second time, this event illustrating cooperation between universities took place in Bayonne. Over the course of a week, 67 expert speakers presented a rich programme attended by more than a thousand people. An entire day was devoted to "Basque Eurocity: a European laboratory for cross-border citizenship". The founding members, the Diputacion de Gipuzkoa and the CAPB, co-organised this innovative course, which combined academic sessions and participatory workshops to nurture a vision of what cross-border citizenship could look like in the future at the level of the Basque Eurocity.
More info [FR]
Relaunching cooperation
On July 17th, Eider Mendoza Larrañaga, the first woman deputy general of Gipuzkoa, elected on June 29th, met the President, Jean-René Etchegaray. Together they agreed on a new era of cooperation between their institutions and decided on new projects, notably in the context of a forthcoming call for projects in the western functional area (AFO) of the POCTFEA programme.
More info [FR]
Photo: Mathieu Prat
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