French-Belgian Parliamentary Working Group

Countries: Belgium , France

Presentation

In 2005, under the impetus of a Comité Interministériel pour l’Aménagement et le Développement du Territoire (Interministerial Committee on Spatial Planning and Development – CIADT) in France, a French-Belgian Parliamentary Working Group was put in place in order to identify obstacles to cross-border cooperation on the French-Belgian border, find concrete solutions, and propose an institutional organisation of governance for the French-Belgian Lille conurbation. It has allowed a real coordination between the state level and the local authorities. Its final report dates from 2007.

Composed of six French MPs and six Belgian MPs, it had a dual mission:

  • Identifying administrative and legal obstacles to cross-border cooperation and finding solutions to overcome them.
  • Advocating governance arrangements for the French-Belgian Lille Métropole, which in 2008 led to the creation of the EGTC of the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis.

In order to do this, the group proposed to the national governments the legislative and regulatory changes necessary, and the experimentations to envision.

The Franco-Belgian Parliamentary Working Group represents an example of coordination between the state level and local authorities.