Policy and tools

The cross-border impact of national legislation: the Franco-German CCCT invites the two governments to agree on an 18-month trial period

October 2024

On 21 October 2024, the Franco-German cross-border cooperation committee (CCC), responsible for analysing the impact of new legislation on border territories, adopted a resolution ‘containing recommendations on the analysis of the cross-border impact of national legislation’. These advances are based on the work of the Impact Analysis Working Group (WG) and its final report adopted on 11 September 2024 under the chairmanship of Professor Nikolaus Marsch of Saarland University and Jean Peyrony, Director General of the MOT.

Under the terms of these recommendations, the CCC invites the two governments to agree on an initial trial period of 18 months, renewable, to test the measures proposed by the WG in its report.

For the French government, this trial period should begin with the entry into force of the French Prime Minister’s circular, currently being revised by the General Secretariat of the Government (SGG, which participated in the WG), which should include the obligation to measure the cross-border impact of new draft laws, and by 1 May 2025 at the latest. This circular should also contain provisions relating to border regions, the definition of which could be based on that being drawn up as part of the new Schengen Borders Code.

The German government should decide to test the application of the ‘procedure for identifying and preventing significant undesirable effects of new legal regulations in border regions’ (e.g. additional bureaucratic burdens or unintended side-effects) provided for in the WG report.

For this pilot phase, the two governments should consider at least economic, social, environmental, health, energy and transport fields (in application of article 13, paragraph 2 of the Treaty of Aachen). A methodological guide could be drawn up for each country, and the relevant administrations should receive appropriate training to raise their awareness of the challenges of cross-border integration.

The two governments should instruct the Joint Secretariat of the CCC to disseminate – during the 18-month trial phase – the projects forwarded to it to the members of the Committee and to the designated expert bodies; the Joint Secretariat should forward the responses and analyses obtained to the SGG in France or to the competent federal ministry in Germany.

Finally, the CCC will set up a working group to support this experimental phase, in particular by ensuring that these recommendations are implemented, and by providing expert support to the players involved. It will submit a report to the Committee every six months on the implementation of these recommendations. The Working Group will be made up of legal experts and representatives of the relevant ministries. Participation in the working group is open to all members of the CCC; other experts may be involved in the work.