A look back on the MOT GA: in Dunkirk, stakeholders in cross-border cooperation support a Europe of cohesion beyond borders!
More than a hundred stakeholders from all over France gathered in Dunkirk and on the Franco-Belgian border on September 17th and 18th, 2024, for the MOT’s general assembly, at the invitation of its members: the Dunkirk Urban Community (Communauté urbaine de Dunkerque), the Nord Department and the Flanders-Dunkirk Urban Planning Agency. The event was an opportunity to highlight the richness and uniqueness of cross-border cooperation on the Franco-Flemish coast, while reaffirming the importance of cooperation in the face of the common challenges faced by border territories!
At a time when some countries, such as Germany, are tightening control of their borders, MOT President Christian Dupessey, Mayor of Annemasse and President of the Metropolitan Pole of the French Genevois, re-elected for three years, stressed “the need to increase our political strength tenfold to support a Europe of cooperation and cohesion across borders”.
“We need to promote it in the public debate, because the rise of extremes is a concern that can be seen along borders. The development of cross-border citizenship remains the primary objective, because it is not by closing borders, as Germany is doing today, that migration problems will be resolved. Doing so undermines the Schengen area, and the daily lives of citizens and thousands of border workers in cross-border areas. The border should be a ‘seam’, never a ‘cut-off’.
Find all the information on the event page [in French]:
