The Significance of the Cross-Border Dimension for Promoting Peace and Reconciliation
By Liam O’Dowd and Cathal McCall, 2006
This paper focuses on the significance of the cross-border dimension in promoting peace and reconciliation. Its central argument is that cross-border co-operation can help undermine the territorial “caging” which has been so central to the conflict in Northern Ireland. The paper begins by making the case that borders and border change are integral to conflict and its resolution. Secondly, it traces how the recent re-configuration of cross-border relations has challenged the architecture of “containment” which has both limited and intensified communal conflict in Ireland. Thirdly, it reports on some empirical research into the cross-border co-operation promoted by voluntary sector organisations funded under Peace II. Finally, it draws some tentative conclusions about the importance of transnational cross-border cooperation across the external and internal borders in undermining the territorialist zero-sum conflict which has long characterised Northern Ireland and which now assumes its most visible and antagonistic form at the interfaces bordering the two communities within the province.
 McCall (2006) The Significance of the Cross-Border Dimension | [ ] |
Ethnic, Regional and National Identities in the Context of European Cross Border Cooperation Opportunities: A Case Study of Italian Ethnic Community in Slovene Istria
By Ksenija Škrabec, 2007
The article proceeds from the main research question about the effects of EU integration and cross border cooperation initiatives on the border region of Slovene Istria as a whole and Italian ethnic community in particular in terms of its socio-economic and cultural activity and identity issue. The authoress tries to expose the historical review of the cross
border cooperation between Slovenia and Italy prior to the EU programmes and afterwards and the activity of the Italian ethnic community in the latter.
| Škrabec (2007) Ethnic, Regional and National Identities | [ ] |
The Unbearable Instability of Structural Funds’ Distribution
By Nicola Francesco Dotti, 2011
In order to promote “cohesion, competitiveness and cooperation” across Europe, the EU has established a common regional policy to support underdeveloped territories. This EU regional policy required to set up a very complex mechanism to implement such a huge effort to coordinate many interventions across highly differentiated territories. However, those territories are provided with very different institutional settings, and then the mechanism to coordinate all of them becomes particularly complex. The aim of this paper is to discuss the EU multi-level governance for structural funds (SFs), revising the origin, rationale and evolution of this policy in order to identify the limits of the institutional mechanism for the implementation of this policy. These limits will show their effects on the unstable distribution of SFs across the EU regions on a long-term perspective. Results show that the intervention of the EU is neither constant nor stable across regions, independently from their development paths. This instability should provide further arguments on the discussion about the SF policy and governance in order to take into considerations also institutional limits of the EU.
