Cross-border economic development

Using European programmes and capitalising on experience

The objective of territorial cooperation seems poorly suited to financing large investments, which fall more readily under regional or national programmes. However, this funding is particularly suitable for opening up the approaches taken within national frameworks and helping to set in motion cross-border governance of economic development: knowledge sharing, cross-border development agencies, business services, etc.

We can also consider implementing integrated territorial investments, or multi-fund territorial development operations (between a European Territorial Cooperation programme and one or more regional programmes, etc.).

In addition, there is a lack of know-how transfer and capitalisation of experience in the field of cross-border economic development. Acquired skills are too often linked to particular people and are lost when these people change jobs. Much work needs to be done to maintain such know-how.

A toolkit for economic actors based on practical experience should be developed using:
- shared resources
- pooling of calls for partners, proposals, training, etc.

This capitalisation must be carried out in each cross-border territory, as well as by networking these efforts at the European level.