Institutionalizing (cross-border) citizenship on subnational level – The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) as a new administrative space for participatory and functional governance in Europe
By Peter Ulrich, 2016
Cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation of subnational entities within the European Union (EU) have been strengthened politically, legally and financially by the EU and the Council of Europe. Nearly every border region in the EU participates in some form of cooperation structure across borders – mainly due to financial support by the EU joint initiative INTERREG. In general, scholars have described these Europeanization effects of regional administrative integration using neofunctionalist (multilevel governance) and intergovernmentalist approaches, highlighting the cooperation rationale of cross-border actors. On the basis of the EU legal instrument European Grouping of territorial cooperation (EGTC), processes of re-scaling, re-territorialization and paradiplomacy in a “Europe of the territories” will be analyzed with regard to inclusiveness and modes of subnational participatory governance. In general, policy-making and strategic developments of the EU regional policy, particularly the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), are products of a successive bargaining and functional technocratic regulation between just the administrative elites within the EU multilevel (supranational, national, subnational) polity excluding the local community. The aim of the article is thus to elaborate forms and channels of transborder participatory governance in EU transnational spaces and to examine pre-conditions for the establishment of an increased inclusion of a cross-border citizenship. Moreover, it focuses on the problems and obstacles of the institutionalization of deliberative and participatory mechanisms of a subnational citizenship in a postnational multilevel arena. Finally, the research - that is based on a case study of the EGTC Galicia-Norte de Portugal - analyzes to what extent the EGTC fosters both the consolidation of cross-border cooperation and institutionalization of transnational participation on a subnational level. Eventually, the article aims to go a step ahead through a conceptual shift towards a normative - participatory approach of (cross-border) regional integration.
Euro Mediterranean Integration and Cooperation: Prospects And Challenges
By Katia Adamo and Paolo Garonna, 2009
After an overview of current institutional cooperation in the Mediterranean and relevant macroeconomic indicators, this essay investigates the challenges and prospects of regional cooperation and integration within the key sectors of trade, transport, energy and environment. The experience of UNECE in pan-European and sectoral cooperation, combined with the prospects of interregional cooperation among the regional commissions of the United Nations, represents an opportunity to add momentum to economic cooperation and integration in the Mediterranean.
Opportunities of cross- border cooperation between small and medium cities in Europe
By Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, 2015
This report is meant to observe and highlight the opportunities for cross-border cooperation initiatives between small and medium cities with respect to territorial development and the reduction of inequalities. A selection of case studies, which is far from being exhaustive, will be presented. It aims at being representative of the diversity of the existing forms of cross-border cooperation in Europe which attempt to transcend differences and improve cohabitation and exchanges across borders. This perspective will hopefully nourish the debate on the steps to be taken in order to strengthen the position of small and medium cities within cross-border dynamics.
 LISER (2015) Opportunities of cross- border cooperation | [ ] |
Bordering, Border Politics and Cross-Border Cooperation in Europe (Chapter 2)
By James W. Scott, 2016
This chapter relates CBC and the creation of cross-border regions to bordering by emphasizing their political character within the context of European integration. Discussion begins with a very general overview of the state of the debate in border studies and a specific focus on change and continuity in the framing of State territoriality. This is followed by a brief discussion of the bordering perspective as a means of interpreting the European Union’s role in configuring borders in a wider European context. What emerges in this discussion is that the EU is a border-making actor that reflects a number of different bordering logics. Among these logics we can include the creation of new post-national relational spaces, the consolidation of territorial development within the EU but also the creation of a highly selective border regime that regulates access to the Schengen Area.
