Meike Argast
Fonction
Assistante
Organisation
Maison de la Grande Région
QuattroPole
QuattroPole
Border Region
Germany, Luxembourg, France, Greater Region
Language(s)
Français
Allemand
Introduction
The QuattroPole consists of the cities of Metz, Luxembourg, Trier and Saarbrücken, which have come together to defend their joint territorial appeal.
Summary
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.
Content
The QuattroPole is a spontaneous emanation of the different cities involved, encouraged by the European integration process and the reinforcement of cross-border agglomerations.
The QuattroPole's governance is quite conventional, but it guarantees the representation of the different partners and has enough autonomy to carry through the projects. The network is run by an assembly and a board of directors (whose members are the 4 mayors) and a general secretariat. 6 project groups act under the supervision of this management, focusing on 6 themes: tourism, culture, social policy, energy, the digital economy and fair trade. These six areas cover the QuattroPole's priorities. Concerning the forward-looking component, a vision of the future cooperation between the 4 Cities is in the process of being drawn up. Its aim is to establish the broad lines of the future cooperation within the QuattroPole and to move the QuattroPole towards a greater autonomy so that more concrete projects can be implemented.
In the mobility field, the network wishes to set up efficient public transport services between the 4 Cities are currently less than an hour away from each other. Citizen awareness-raising actions are also conducted. In the digital and creative economy field, the aim is to attract as many high tech companies as possible. A startup fair is organised for this purpose. An economic opportunities catalogue is also published. In the energy field, the QuattroPole Declaration for the Environment was adopted in 2015. Following on from that founding document, a process of monitoring sustainable energy initiatives and awareness-raising actions has been introduced. In the cultural field, the QuattroPole has organised different festival and arts competitions. In the social policy field, exchanges of good practices and partnerships with research institutes have been set up. In the tourism field, the network has adopted a tourism marketing plan with a view to promoting the attractions and specificities of these Cities, which attract almost 500,000 visitors a year.
Conclusions
The issue binding the 4 Cities in their joint association is their shared appeal. Their limited demographic weight and geographic proximity means that they are not in a context of territorial competition. On the contrary, the stated metropolitan ambition is only sustainable if the attractions, resources and specific features of each of the cities are pooled. In addition, the cross-border context is an advantage in terms of synergies for these cities which are all relatively unconnected to the metropolitan centres in their respective countries.
The area most emblematic of this cooperation is culture, a field in which all 4 Cities have undisputed and complementary assets, with, in particular, the museums in Luxembourg and Metz, the historic heritage of Trier, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, etc. The benefits of the QuattroPole are therefore largely concentrated on cities' appeal and interculturality. As evidenced by the Vision for the future, if the QuattroPole wants to conduct more ambitious, more costly, more structural projects in the future, it will be to gain in autonomy and improve its potential to attract investment.
Lead
Sécrétariat Général du QuattroPole
Contributions
City of Luxemburg, Ville de Metz, City of Trier, City of Sarrebruck
Links
https://quattropole.org/fr
Keywords
Contact Person(s)
Date of creation
2020