The aim of the TEIN network, led by the Euro-Institut in Strasbourg, is to contribute to the process of European integration by training the actors involved in cross-border projects. Its members are different research and training organisations from more than 10 European Union countries. Its activities focus on the sharing of good practices and knowledge of cross-border issues and well as producing and disseminating educational tools for cross-border practitioners.
The QuattroPole is a network of Cities in the Greater Region, spread across 3 countries and with a total population of 530,000 inhabitants. The name of this network reveals the partnership's metropolitan ambitions. The objective is, first of all, to position this relatively dispersed urban agglomeration on the chessboard of the main European metropolitan centres and, secondly, to raise the awareness of stakeholders and citizens of the joint future of these geographically so-close cities.
Border controls and closures have historically been used to combat epidemics. These are measures that can be implemented on simple authority of States but whose efficacy remains to be widely validated scientifically. In 2020, numerous countries reacted in this way to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, even before implementing domestic policies against the disease. In these countries the speed of this response is linked to past policies which relied on tightening border controls to reinforce the feeling of security and belonging. However, this trend is antithetical to the implementation of an effective public health policy.
In Europe at the beginning of the year 2020, due to the Covid19 epidemic, numerous national borders were abruptly closed. These closures, the first of their kind, referred to as "covidfencing" in this article, were a serious setback for many cross-border workers. This episode has demonstrated the deterritorialisation of numerous activities in Europe, which are no longer tied to one territory, but to several, and the dependency of these activities on borders.
The 2020 public health crisis aroused very diverse reactions within the European Union in terms of migration policy. Initially these measures impacted migrant works in essential sectors of the Union's internal economy (including healthcare and agriculture). Then when it came to getting the economy restarted, these workers had to return to work, very often without sufficient account being taken of their precarious situation and safety. In this context, the existing migration systems played a dual role: channels used by States in the earliest days of the crisis, but then remobilised by the workers who wanted their rights and their safety to be respected.
This article details the process of the formation of the Greater Region as a specific space for cross-border cooperation in Western Europe. The author recounts the history and background to this cooperation and presents the different regions making up the cross-border territory. He then explains its specific socio-economic features through the themes of cross-border working and labour immigration. Finally, he details several cooperation projects initiated, including the cross-border polycentric metropolitan region (RMPT) project. This last example is emblematic of the difficulties involved in future cooperation in this territory.
Since 2007, the Trinational Agglomeration of Basel has allowed the coordination and implementation of concrete measures across the entire territory of the agglomeration. These measures meet the objective of articulating the preservation of landscapes,, the management of urban development and the implementation of public transport services within the territory of the agglomeration. The project is led by a trinational association Agglo Basel of which all the local authorities making up the agglomeration are members. The overall project is designed to ensure that investments in infrastructure are coordinated and balanced between the three national components of the agglomeration.
In France, cooperation projects initiated by local authorities are managed at a decentralised level and, more often than not, result from free initiatives. These cooperation projections grouped together under the general term of "external actions of local authorities" are supported by a ministerial delegation. This support is implemented by different bodies (the National Commission on Decentralised Cooperation (CNCD), the Directorate General for Local Authorities (DGCL), enabled by different funding sources accessible via calls for projects and encouraged by different networking mechanisms.
This collective publication offers an insight into some of the many and varied social and political practices emerging in the border regions of the Western world as a reaction to the phenomenon of globalisation. It proposes to qualify these practices with the notion of "B/ordering space". One thing they all have in common is that they are processes linked to the existence of borders which manifest on a spatial and territorial level.
The Center for Inter American and Border Studies (CIBS) has established itself as a benchmark in the field of border studies by capitalising on the expertise on its own border territory. As well as often being high-profile, this territory presents some important challenges in terms of governance, demography and migration, as well as access to education and healthcare, employment and economic development. To meet these challenges the centre has developed an interdisciplinary approach specific to the territory studied, and a high level of expertise.
