A look back at Interreg GO!: The MOT attends this key European event

April 2025

On March 27th and 28th, the Interreg GO! Event was held in Gorizia (Italy) and Nova Gorica (Slovenia), the first cross-border European capital of culture. The event, which also celebrated 35 years of Interreg, provided an opportunity to reflect on the future of cohesion policy post-2027, in a context marked by profound geopolitical and territorial upheaval.

One of the highlights was the presentation of the results of a consultation carried out with over 15,000 participants, including representatives of Interreg programmes, stakeholders and citizens. This wide-ranging consultation was a first for Interreg. The process was supported by a toolkit dedicated to the implementation of public consultations, finalised at the end of 2023 and discussed at the Interreg Annual Event in Santiago de Compostela the same year, to which the MOT contributed.

The results of the consultations* and the discussions in Gorizia highlighted the persistence of obstacles to cross-border cooperation: administrative differences, language barriers, socio-economic inequalities between neighbouring regions and incompatible legal frameworks (highlighted by the “Justice without borders” project on the Franco-German border, which won an Interreg Slam prize). The need to sustain and scale-up solutions tested under Interreg was also emphasized. During the consultations, new defence and security priorities emerged, complementing the discussions by emphasising the importance of cohesion and cooperation in the face of new geopolitical challenges.

In an unstable world, cooperation is more than ever a strategic tool for cohesion, resilience and peace. The famous phrase attributed to Bastiat – ‘When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will’ – resonated in the discussions, echoing the current crises and the war in Ukraine.

*Interact has published reports on the Interreg programme consultations (find out more here), and the results of all the consultations are due to be presented in a comprehensive report on post-2027, to be published in the coming months.