The contribution represents the entire pallet of bodies of cross-border cooperation that have developed along the borders of the French continent that borders eight adjacent states, and potentially their regional subdivisions. There are national bodies, i.e. associations (everywhere), bodies under French law ("sociétés d’économie mixte locale" [local mixed-economic companies] and European districts) and bodies under foreign law. Subsequently, supranational bodies are present (GÖZ, EVTZ, VEZ) that owe their success to legal harmonisation. However, other bodies that resulted from the early phase of cross-border cooperation (work groups) are receding.
The Euroregions can be defined as European cross-border structures that play an influential role at the borders between European countries. Les Euroregions have an important role to play in increasing territorial cooperation. It is therefore important to provide support for the development of these structures. This book is a catalogue of good practices for the Euroregions intended to provide solutions liable to inspire a higher level of cross-border cohesion and positive progress in the process of European integration.
Border regions such as the Greater Region or the Upper Rhine tri-national metropolitan region extend far beyond their narrow border areas. While the institutional structures of cooperation have been stabilized by agreements and organizations, instruments to be able to react appropriately to the changing framework conditions of cross-border cooperation are lacking. Increasing cross-border interdependencies, economic structural transformation processes, and new energy policies in the national sub-regions as well as demographic change present new challenges for cross-border cooperation. In addition, there are increasing spatial polarizations, which, on the one hand, affect issues of metropolization in urban centers and, on the other hand, concern public services in rural areas and influence the further development and sustainability of the border areas concerned. Building on the work of the working group “Border Futures,” this volume examines the practice-relevant topic of cross-border cooperation with more recent findings from border area research relevant to planning in a European context. On the one hand, the results are to be made usable for the border regions in the LAG area and, on the other hand, introduced into a broader professional discourse on the further development of cross-border cooperation. Questions of a future-oriented cross-border governance, new spatial functionalities as well as new planning instruments play just as important a role as the possibilities of the current programming period of the EU structural policy for border regions.
