Thirty years of European territorial cooperation

 Nov. 12, 2020

The European Parliament Think Tank released a briefing on " Thirty years of European territorial cooperation" on Nov. 11, 2020

Here is the extract of summary note and the challenges outlined in the briefing note.

SUMMARY
Established in 1990, the first European territorial cooperation initiative, Interreg I, focused on cross-border cooperation. Action in this area has expanded over the years to cover broader initiatives such as trans-national cooperation, involving countries from wider geographical areas, and inter-regional cooperation, which brings together regions from across the whole EU. These three strands together make up European territorial cooperation (ETC), which is one of the two main goals of cohesion policy today and which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

With the removal of many of Europe's frontier posts, travelling freely across borders has become second nature for millions of EU citizens. European territorial cooperation has brought Europeans closer together, strengthened connectivity and improved the natural environment, supported by EU mechanisms such as the European groupings of territorial cooperation, and macro-regional strategies. Yet despite these achievements, numerous obstacles to closer cooperation still remain, such as divergent national rules in the areas of employment, healthcare and social security. Recent years have witnessed increased calls to address these hurdles, with the 2015 Luxembourg EU Presidency launching discussions on a new instrument for cross-border projects, leading to the 2018 European Commission proposal for a cross-border mechanism, and the Commission rolling out initiatives such as the cross-border review and the b-solutions project, which aims to identify and find solutions to remaining bottlenecks, helping to boost growth and cohesion in EU border regions.

With negotiations under way on post-2020 cohesion policy, there is broad agreement among many stakeholders on the importance of strengthening Interreg beyond 2020. Yet the budget for ETC has been significantly reduced under the current Interreg proposals despite the many achievements of this policy, not least in recent months during which cross-border cooperation has provided a lifeline for many border regions. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that territorial cooperation arguably needs protecting more than ever, with the sudden closure of EU internal borders a stark reminder that European territorial cooperation cannot be taken for granted.

This is a further updated edition of a briefing from March 2018. 

Challenges
One issue raised by many stakeholders is the low amount of funding available for European territorial cooperation. Although the 2014-2020 budget for Interreg was the largest ever, it still represented only 2.8 % of the cohesion policy budget. Many believe that this is not enough, a point raised in the European Parliament's 2016 resolution on European territorial cooperation. A second problem area is the absence of EU-level data about the impact of territorial cooperation, what it delivers and the areas where it works best. This can have direct consequences for the success of results orientation, which is also proving to be something of a challenge, with participants at the 2016 annual Interreg meeting noting that low amounts of funding mean that it is particularly difficult to apply the same results indicators as those used for mainstream cohesion programmes. Evaluating the impact of Interreg programmes continues to be a challenge, a point highlighted by a 2019 study by Spatial Foresight, which emphasised that while result indicators are able to measure change, they cannot capture the extent to which a given ETC programme has contributed to that change, making it difficult to measure the territorial effects of transnational cooperation.

In its capacity as a network bringing together stakeholders involved in ETC, Interact has pointed to a lack of sufficient political backing for Interreg and weak complementarity between Interreg and other ESIF programmes, noting also that the coordination and administration of multi-country programmes and projects is often complex and costly, with the European Parliament also calling for more simplification. Another problem that has been raised is the fact that local and regional stakeholders are insufficiently represented in the governance of programmes, a point highlighted by CECICN, the Conference of European Cross-Border and Interregional City Networks, which has also drawn attention to the difficulties of getting the private sector involved.

 

One particular challenge to cross-border cooperation that has emerged in recent years is the reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen zone. This issue first came to prominence during the so-called 'migration crisis', with the annual Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière conference highlighting in 2016 that these measures were already having an impact, causing long delays in regions where people regularly crossed the border. The advent of the coronavirus crisis has seen countries close their borders once again in 2020, stifling cross-border cooperation and having a damaging effect on local economies. A June 2020 report on the economic and social impact of closing borders prepared by the Euskadi Navarre Nouvelle Aquitaine Euroregion found, for instance, that as many as 80.1 % of respondents had stopped shopping across the border, with a further 49.4 % refraining from leisure activities in their neighbouring country, such as eating out. Yet the coronavirus pandemic has also had a broader impact on the delivery of Interreg programmes, with an April 2020 report by Interact drawing attention to such issues as delays in the implementation of projects, reporting of expenditure and changes to project activities, as a result of which many preparatory and programming activities for the period post-2020 are now on hold.

In full: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI(2020)659340

Briefing in PDF (ENG)