The cross-border coalfields led to the development of towns along the border throughout the SaarLorLux area. The industry fell into crisis. The urban spaces now need to counter the demographic and economic degradation. More and more borders disappear as well. New organisational strategies are now being introduced. This article presents two of them: The strategies of conurbations and the cross-border city networks. The article discusses strengths and weaknesses of these strategies.
The article presents the development strategy that was introduced in the late 1990s by the conurbations in Lorraine near the French Luxembourgian border. These cities, developing during the heyday of the mining and steel industries, had to face difficult economic and social situations in the years after the economic miracle. They found new paths for development thanks to the regional policy of the EU, which was targeted at cross-border cooperation. The presented research work dealt with the contribution of this new strategy to improve the living situation of the people near the borders and their development perspectives.
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.
Based on a wide-ranging survey carried out in 2010 and 2011 with a representative sample of cross-border workers in Luxembourg, the CEPS/INSTEAD has published, in conjunction with Forum EUROPA, the University of Strasbourg and the CNRS, a collection of articles devoted to the everyday lives of cross-border workers. It contains 13 sections on a range of complementary topics, which together form a synthesis of the main findings on the mobility of cross-border workers. One of the main findings of the survey is the significant increase in the use of public transport as a main means of commuting, even though car use continues to dominate. The quality of the public transport offer (journey time, services, reliability, comfort, etc.) plays a decisive role in cross-border workers' choice of transport mode, as do parking facilities at the place of work. Cross-border workers live an average of 44 km from their place of work and take 53 minutes to get to work. This distance from the place of work means that half of cross-border workers leave home before 7 am. 60% of car drivers say that they are satisfied or very satisfied with their commuting arrangements. Cross-border workers who take the train are generally more satisfied, with 74% saying they are satisfied or very satisfied. Furthermore, it is among those who take the train that fatigue makes itself felt the least compared to everyday perceptions in the different modes of transport. If 73% of cross-border households have at least two cars, generally opinions about cars are quite contrasted. But cross-border workers' mobility is not only limited to commuting for work, since one person in five crossing the border goes to Luxembourg for a non-work-related activity, mainly to eat out or to go shopping. On average, people crossing the border spend 2 hours a day and cover 100 km for all their movements.
The Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives was founded in 2009 according to the model of the French association Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière. The centre would like to make implementation of cross-border projects possible. It is supported on a national level and summarises the actors of the border areas. This way, it can promote a structured dialogue between the (national and European) authorities and between the local and regional actors.
Located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the interdisciplinary Centre for International Border Research deals with border reconfiguration and conflict transformation at various levels. The academic staff involved comes from anthropology, geography, political science and sociology. The network represents an opportunity for scholars worldwide to network and exchange research outputs on borders. It does so by a wide range of activities: organization/supporting seminars and conferences, running a visiting fellowship programme, publishing working papers, hosting a well-documented multi-media resource platform. The website provides free access to a large extent of the network. The website documents mainly activities that ran in the 2000s and early 2010s.
The borders are omnipresent within the greater region. The differences (in the areas of economics, social matters, tax matters, real estate, etc.) that they create are frequent reasons for mobility. Since an increase of moves from Luxembourg to the border regions (Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, Lorraine or Wallonia) has been observed recently, this work tries to determine the most important reasons and consequences of this phenomenon with its many facets.
As part of a study on employment dynamics in the SaarLorLux Greater Region, this article analyses the employment and unemployment situation there and highlights the phenomenon of cross-border working that is rife there. As unemployment is high in certain areas in the region, exchanges have developed between countries in the form of cross-border working, which, although it creates jobs, raises complex issues on the taxation and social fronts.
We, most of the time, look on border as simple artefacts on the ground serving a variety of practical reasons and that can be classified according to the purposes (political, social, economic, etc.) they serve and how they serve them. If they are necessary for all sorts of reasons, borders are also inherently problematic. Instead of adopting a rigid position about them, we need to consider them as movable structures that have advantages and disadvantages. Borders should define ‘dwelling’ rather than national spaces and motivate political responsibility for pursuit of a ‘decent life’ as not restricted to any particular state.
