Grande Région

The Interregional Labour Market Observatory (IBA) is a network of specialized labor market institutes, all of which operate in the Greater Region. On behalf of the Summit of the Greater Region, the IBA collects data on labor markets in the Greater Region. This data is used to write reports on the labor market situation in the Greater Region. In addition to structural reporting based on comparable statistical data from the sub-regions of the Greater Region, the publication contains qualitative information on thematic focus areas.

Included in an edited collection focusing on social services of general interest in Europe, this chapter considers the concept of "social service" as it is understood in France, and addresses concerns relating to spatial equality to diagnose issues of accessibility to maternity wards across the Greater Region. The representations provided differ from Anglo-Saxon approaches to measuring the territorial impact of social services of general interest, by taking a predominantly social approach. As the focus of the study, the Greater Region exemplifies the heterogeneity of issues of accessibility seen across neighboring regions.

In recent years, the number of people from Luxembourg relocating to the German border area has increased considerably. Based on four different studies dealing with this development, the article shows that cross-border practices have contributed to a relativization of national borders, but that these continue to exist through new demarcations, such as spatial differentiations and social demarcations.

In this anthology, the authors examine how cross-border regions emerge and what characterizes them. The practices of institutional participants and border area residents in the fields of the labor market, economy, political cooperation, media, everyday life and culture will be analyzed and discussed.

The author examines the question of whether the intensive number of commuters can actually be described - as is usually proclaimed in public discourse – as a sign of progressive integration or whether it can be interpreted more as an indication of persistent socio-economic imbalances between the sub-regions. To do this, he juxtaposes political visions with empirical realities. In the conclusion “Grenzüberschreitender Arbeitsmarkt zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit” (Cross-Border Labor Market Between Demand and Reality) Christian WILLE underlines the asymmetrical configuration of employment. On the one hand, this is due to Luxembourg’s strong expansion of the service sector and the central position with regard to cross-border employment associated with it; on the other hand, it is clear to what extent the regions in northern France, for example, are still suffering from the structural change. It is therefore more appropriate to speak of a regional divergence in employment. At the same time, however, this heterogeneity of socio-economic conditions must be recognized as a driving force for cross-border employment.

In “Contribution B/Ordering in the Greater Region. Mobilities – Borders – Identities” Christian WILLE questions the quadrangle inhabitants' sense of belonging as predicted in the model for regional-political cooperation in the Greater Region. The author examines “which orders of self/other are apparent in the self image of the inhabitants of the Greater Region and to what extent they suggest a cross-border identity” (p. 52) and elaborates on three central features of identity constructions.

The collection approaches the question of cross-border work from different methodological and disciplinary angles, in order to provide an overview of the research on the subject and to analyze the stakes involved in and ways of seeing this activity. The first section describes the configurations, evolution, and scope of cross-border work. The linguistic practices, displacements, and profiles of cross-border workers are elicited in order that these workers may, in the second section of the collection, be compared to others in such regions as the Upper Rhineland and the Canton of Geneva. Rather more analytical, the third section then deals with the dynamic effects of cross-border work on the development of economies, urbanization, physical spaces, and governance. Finally, the fourth and final section raises the question of the social construction of the status of cross-border workers, by way of regulations, conventions, and socio-political representations, etc.).

Throughout the Greater Saar-Lor-Lux Region, the development of border work has been accompanied by a diversification of its forms such as temporary cross-border labor. Temporary-work agencies have imposed themselves as new intermediaries of employment in these cross-border spaces, privileging the development of particular forms of employment and taking advantage of the different social and fiscal legislations operating in different jurisdictions, as they contribute to the recruitment of the cross-border labor-force. These detached temporary workers are relatively well-trained and well-qualified, and most of all they are tied to the temporary employment agencies. While such detachment of temporary workers remains the classical form of a flexible labor-force allowing for access to human resources not available in a given jurisdiction, it also represents a tool for the management of cross-border labor-cost differentials. On a larger scale, such practices of cross-border detachment threaten to speed up the process of deterritorializing systems of national law, and compel within the GR increased competition between national regulatory systems that have, notably, to do with finance and social protection.