How far are the border areas in fringe areas? This chapter emphasises the relativity of the fringe location of the borders depending on the considered spatial and temporal standards. The ambiguous relationship between fringe and border is initially discussed by various emblematic cases in France and Europe. The standard must therefore be changed in order to look at the type of fringe location, which is then reflected by a multi-scale approach of the border regions, between the EU as a whole and the cross-border regions in North-Eastern France. These elements permit a definition of the fringe area in conclusion.
In the greater region SaarLorLux, the development of atypical forms of secondment of workers between Luxembourg and Lorraine was followed. This article focuses on the cross-border secondment of temporary workers from Luxembourg to Lorraine. It turns out that French nationals are often seconded to Lorraine as temporary workers by Luxembourgian agencies. Sometimes they will work close to home. This document is structured into three parts. First, it presents the most important socio-economical dimensions of these secondment practices. Then it shows how the different economic dynamics and social legislation between countries contributed to the development of cross-border mobility (which includes the secondment of workers). Finally, it presents the current elements of the debate about secondment from the point of view of the local representatives of Luxembourg's temping agencies, representatives of the labour union and those responsible at the French labour inspection. The temping agencies in Luxembourg therefore play a determining role for Luxembourg and Lorraine. They use the different tax and social legislations on the order of the companies in Lorraine. For them, temporary workers of Luxembourgian agencies are less expensive than temporary workers from Lorraine. These are qualified workers for industry and construction. They are seconded for relatively long periods and for permanent tasks. These are also workers who have worked for Luxembourgian agencies for a long time. The different levels, employer costs, social security benefits and wages form the basis for the development of such practices. According to those responsible in the temping agencies, such practices are legal, even though they are viewed very critically by labour unions and employees in Lorraine. The labour inspectors also consider them insufficiently controlled due to lack of funds.
One cannot consider the border, the primary focus of border studies, as a mere limit or link; it should be considered more in depth and analysed in the light of its ontological multidimensionality. To do this, Christophe Sohn uses the assemblage concept inspired by Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and applies it to the border, which allows one to understand its multiple and changing character, its varied meanings as well as the practices and power relationships pertaining to borders.
This article focuses on a crucial but neglected aspect of borders in Europe’s changing borders: the role of citizens in envisioning, constructing, maintaining and erasing borders. Borderwork is very much the business of citizens, of ordinary people. They are the one involved in constructing, experiencing and contesting them throughout Europe on any spatial scale from the geopolitical to the local. Our everyday life is subject to securisation. From checkpoints outside supermarkets, the use of credit cards while shopping, we face different kinds of borders.
The temptation to abolish borders corresponds to a desire to kill off a myth, but it neglects the fact that the border, with its four functions of translation, regulation, differentiation and relationship, is a living notion in society. The rediscovery by Brazil of its land borders, like the problems that are arising on this question in the States of what used to be Eastern Europe, show that the relationship function can only be exercised in an active, stable and non-conflictual way if the other functions are fulfilled. A border is the measure of pluralism against the dangers of chaos; it serves as much to "express" order as it does disorder.
Continuing training is an essential component of the labour market in the Greater Region and of the Lisbon Strategy. And yet it is a reality that is hard to harmonise at European level and one which resists statistical analysis. Only the European statistical surveys, in particular the labour force surveys, get anywhere a satisfactory degree of comparability of the indicators. They indicate the insufficiencies and imperfections of the continuing training systems in the Greater Region. Thus rates of participation were stagnating in the different components of the Greater Region at the end of the period, and even falling in Luxembourg and Wallonia, remaining below the European target of 12.5%. The allocation of continuing training efforts appears to be suboptimal insofar as it is the best rained works in large companies that have the best access to continuing training (cf. "all other things being equal" analysis). As for the content of the continuous training, an excessive focus on the current workstation means there is a risk of failing to meet the European target on "flexicurity". If the continuing training systems in the Greater Region have some identical features, the differences are worthy of note.
For example there is a more pronounced openness in the Luxembourg and Walloon systems, which allows for training that is less connected to the current post and extends outside of working hours. Lorraine stood out for its higher rate of participation at the end of the period, although this comes at the price of shorter training courses. In 2020, continuing training remains a challenge for Europe and the Greater region, with a target of 15%. Even more so as the current economic difficulties risk curbing efforts in continuing training, even though they are a lever for emerging from the crisis.
The development of the Øresund region thanks to the bridge linking Copenhagen and Eastern Denmark to Southern Sweden has been considered as a model for the construction of a European region. Based on a multidisciplinary project, this article takes the Øresund case as its starting point, and provides a few contradictory examples from Scandinavia. The objective is to discuss regions strive to make themselves visible and attractive to investor and visitors, but above all to determine to what extent they produce regional players who actively create integration through different activities and contacts at the borders. The emphasis is placed on the cultural dimensions that we find in everyday practices and the symbolic manifestations of these transnational processes.
The article covers several themes and concepts that have been important in the development of border studies over the last few years. In doing so, it addresses emerging research perspectives of a nature to bring about a conceptual change in the viewpoint of human geography. Based on the existing literature, the authors emphasise that current work on border is looking at the reasons underlying border production through the daily practices of the populations, and by understanding borders as institutions, processes and symbols all at the same time. Particular attention is paid to the process of reconfiguring state borders in terms of territorial control, security and sovereignty as well as the interrelations between the spheres of daily life, power and the construction of social borders.
This study is an opportunity to analyse the consequences (for the citizen) of the setting up of space that is a genuine cross-border space as regards access to maternity care. It also underscores the importance of health cooperation in the Greater Region in order to avoid having areas of vulnerability. The examples studied in this regional space provide useful information for decision-makers in terms of territorial development. The analysis underscores the importance health cooperation based on collaboration at different levels: administrative, economic and technical, but also cultural in order to determine whether such an approach is feasible.
This article aims at evaluating the democratic status and prospects of the strategic, institutional and cooperative level within CBRs, based on a case study of the Øresund Region, situated on the border between Denmark and Sweden, and complemented with secondary evidences from other CBRs. The following questions are asked:
Do the strategies promoted have a democratic scope?
Are institutions reasonably accountable, in a traditional sense, to citizen within the region?
Is the concrete cooperation inclusive of broad categories of citizens?
