New book release: Grenzerfahrungen | Expériences transfrontalières

35 years after the Schengen Agreement, controls and closures of border crossings were suddenly back on the agenda in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic in spring 2020. In which areas did cross-border coordination work and where did it go wrong, at least at the beginning? How were the critical moments of the crisis experienced by the actors? What can we learn from this to emerge stronger from the crisis?

These and other questions are discussed by selected authors from the fields of politics, economics, health, culture, media and many more in the recently published book "Grenzerfahrungen | Expériences transfrontalières: COVID-19 und die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen | Les relations franco-allemandes à l'heure de la COVID-19". Based on the example of Germany and France, the authors give insights into "cross-border experiences" in the Greater Region during and after the Corona border closures.

With contributions by UniGR-CBS members Nora Crossey, Claudia Polzin-Haumann, Florian Weber and Christian Wille.

Contents

• Neue Herausforderungen, alte Grenzen? Wie die COVID-19-Pandemie das deutsch-französische Verhältnis aufwirbelt (Florian Weber, Roland Theis, Karl Terrollion)
• Nouveaux défis, vieilles frontières ? La pandémie de COVID-19 chahute les relations franco-allemandes (Florian Weber, Roland Theis, Karl Terrollion)
• Ein Schritt zurück, zwei nach vorne Wie die Coronakrise uns lehrte, mit Mut die grenzüberschreitende Zusammenarbeit voranzubringen (Michael Roth)
• Für eine krisenfeste Zusammenarbeit in der deutsch-französischen Grenzregion! Erfahrungen und Schlussfolgerungen aus der »ersten Welle« der COVID-19-Pandemie (Markus Kerber)
• France-Allemagne : une union à la hauteur des enjeux (Bruno Le Maire) COVID-19 : quel impact sur le travail parlementaire et le moteur franco-allemand pour l’Europe ? (Ronan Gleut)
• Comment la crise de la COVID-19 a-t-elle été vécue par le consulat général de France en Sarre ? (Florian Weber échange avec Catherine Robinet)
• Gemeinsam Grenzen überwinden (Andreas Jung, Christophe Arend)
• Surmonter des frontières ensemble L’Assemblée parlementaire franco-allemande dans la crise de la COVID-19 (Christophe Arend, Andreas Jung)
• Grenzen in Europa gemeinsam überschreiten (Franziska Brantner)
• Gemeinsam vorangehen! (Florian Weber im Gespräch mit Tobias Hans)
• COVID-19 im Saarland: »Konkrete Hilfe leisten, wo immer wir können.« (Florian Weber im Gespräch mit Anke Rehlinger)
• La COVID-19 à l’aune de l’humilité, du pragmatisme et de la solidarité européenne (Jean Rottner)
• « C’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière » (Edmond Rostand) – la Moselle face à la COVID-19 (Patrick Weiten)
• Écueils et chances de la crise sanitaire liée à la COVID-19 : les collectivités territoriales en première ligne (Mathieu Klein)
• Eng verschlungen über die Grenze hinweg (Florian Weber im Gespräch mit Dominik Jochum)
• S’Coronaland Frankreich! (Gérard Mittelberger)
• Flatterband und Barrikaden: Grenzschließungen in der Pandemie (Hanno Thewes)
• Chronique d’une année COVID (Gilbert Schuh)
• Beherztes Handeln auf dem Winterberg: ALLE FÜR ALLE (Florian Weber im Gespräch mit Christian Braun)
• Deutsch-französische Wirtschaftsbeziehungen im Zeichen der Pandemie (Patrick Brandmaier)
• Transformer la crise en chance pour les territoires transfrontaliers (Florian Weber échange avec Frédéric Berner)
• Corona 2020. Du sentiment d’exil en Allemagne à un nouveau souffle pour l’Europe ? (Florian Weber échange avec Valérie Désoulières)
• Juste une feuille à la frontière – mauvaise communication et autres difficultés au quotidien (Florian Weber échange avec Marcel Adam)
• Drei Monate »Grenzerfahrungen«: Was bleibt? (Carlin Dylla)
• France / Allemagne : deux cultures politiques face à la COVID-19 (Thomas Wieder)
• Deutschland, Frankreich, COVID-19 – das Virus und die Grenzregion (Susanne Freitag-Carteron)
• Freundschaft mit Hindernissen (Hélène Maillasson)
• « Là, je suis bloquée ! » (Florian Weber échange avec Janine Loock)
• 200 Kilometer für Schengen (Philip Maria Albert Hoffmann)
• Hochschulen in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie (Florian Weber im Gespräch mit Manfred Schmitt)
• L’enseignement supérieur au temps de la COVID-19 : défis, gestion de crise et opportunités (Florian Weber échange avec Manfred Schmitt)
• Nationale Reflexe im Angesicht einer europäischen Krise (Tetyana Albers, Valerie Köbele-Ennaji, Jacob Ross, Veit Wolfart)
• The return of borders (Christian Wille)
• Geschlossene Grenzen – offene Sprachen? (Claudia Polzin-Haumann)
• COVID-19 als mögliche Chance (Nora Crossey)
• Les crises et le nécessaire renforcement du couple franco-allemand (Nicolas Bouzou)
• Viel mehr als (Roland Theis)
• Bien plus qu’un « plus jamais ! » (Roland Theis)

Interview with the editor and UniGR-CBS member Florian Weber

Florian Weber, with Roland Theis and Karl Terrollion you have published a book on French-German relations during the pandemic.  What was behind this book project?

In the first wave of Covid-19 in Spring 2020, State Secretary Roland Theis contacted me to discuss what we, as border researchers, thought of the border controls and border closures.  As we were talking the idea came up of doing something together on the knee-jerk reaction we were seeing of wanting to protect health by securing national borders.  Then in July 2020 when it was possible to travel again, we met at Saarland's Paris Bureau to develop the concept for our book, which was based on the idea of giving different actors in the crisis a voice.

 

Well over thirty people from Germany and France give their points of view in your book.  Why so many different perspectives?

First of all, it was important to us to always give a balanced picture, i.e. to illustrate the German and French perspectives at the same time. So politicians from different levels - from national to local - had to be given their say. But that was only one of the criteria.  We went further than that, also involving leading figures from fields such as healthcare, economics, culture, the media and in science in the book project.  At the same time, we never counted the number of authors or interviewees – on the one hand, it sort of went without saying, and yet, on the other hand, we made a careful selection to be sure of getting insights in as many different areas relevant to the crisis as possible.

 

Your book represents a critical retrospective of a crisis year, 2020. What particularly surprised you when you read the contributions?

Even before I read them, what surprised was how willing to take part most of the authors and interviewees were.  Especially as for many politicians this is definitely a sensitive subject. And then French-German relations, as the media coverage has shown, have not come out of the events unscathed. When I read the contributions I was surprised and definitely impressed by the extent to which the shock of the border controls and closures was unsparingly "dissected" as a break with the past and yet at the same time avenues are identified for how ways of tackling crises better in the future.

 

For the most part the texts focus on what happened in the Greater Region. Do the observations also apply to other border regions?   

Many of the developments that the book looks at were indeed also observed in the Upper Rhine-Alsace border region. This is revealed by recent publications, for example by Birte Washrooms. Other border regions have also seen similar developments, for instance at the German-Polish or the German-Danish borders.  But there are also some differences, which have their origins in certain historic developments and local complexities. To look more closely at this, I am currently preparing an edited volume with Dominick Brodowski and Jonas Nesselhauf on the theme of "Covid-19 and Europa".

 

The book closes with some thoughts on how crises can be dealt with better in the future in the Greater Region.  What is your view on the implementation of these proposals for action?

From a practical point of view, strengthening cross-border institutions, extending healthcare across national borders, simplifying things for cross-border commuters, removing administrative hurdles or – as with the French strategy – achieving the aim of forming a multilingual territory with a common past and a common future in fact seem to me to be unavoidable. At the same time, I am well aware that these are not easy things to do and they will take time.  As a border space researcher, it is an important concern to concentrate, along with my colleagues, on future needs and to direct the spotlight onto what remains to be done – in short, to further develop and strengthen the connection between theory and practice.  As an interregional competence center, UniGR-Center for Border Studies offers the perfect framework to work on these issues.

More information about the book's topic can be found in the BorderObs Blog article by Florian Weber.

Bibliographic information
Florian Weber, Roland Theis, Karl Terrollion (Eds.) (2021): Grenzerfahrungen | Expériences transfrontalières. COVID-19 und die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen | Les relations franco-allemandes à l’heure de la COVID-19. Wiesbaden, Springer VS Verlag.

More information here

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