Cross-border maritime cooperation

While the maritime space is primarily a natural barrier characterized by territorial discontinuity, cooperation initiatives help transform this obstacle into a shared territory or at least into a space for exchanging ideas on common issues. Low accessibility and a lack of cross-border culture pose obstacles to cooperation, while maritime connections and “fixed” links (bridges and tunnels) generate flows and exchanges that are essential for building a common territorial project.

Two scales of maritime cooperation (not mutually exclusive) can be distinguished: local cooperation and the transnational/macro-regional scale. The English Channel area is a telling example, as it is involved in two former cross-border programs (France Channel England and 2 Seas) as well as in transnational programs (North-West Europe, North Sea, and Atlantic Area) that survived Brexit.