Following the European elections, the MOT would like to pay special tribute to the work of MEP Anne Sander, MOT vice-president since 2015, whose mandate has unfortunately not been renewed.
On June 20th, 2024, the regulation "on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders" - the new "Schengen Code" - was published in the EU's Official Journal.
On June 19th, the MOT was invited to speak at the Strasbourg-Ortenau Eurodistrict Council, chaired by Jeanne Barseghian, Mayor of Strasbourg.
At the "Reinforcing Cross-Border Governance for Development" event held on June 19th and 20th, the European Commission and the OECD presented a new tool designed to strengthen governance in the cross-border regions of the European Union.
The study on "Strengthening the resilience of EU border regions: Mapping risks & crisis management tools and identifying gaps" has just been published by the European Commission (DG REGIO and DG ECHO).
On June 17th, the MOT and the Dunkirk Urban Community co-organized a "Journée Trans-Mer du Nord" (Trans-North Sea Day) to launch a forward-looking reflection process, initially internal to the Dunkirk region, on cooperation with neighboring England.
On June 5th, 2024, a new meeting of the MOT network's "cross-border governance" working group was held, focusing on the results of the "cross-border living areas" experiment. This experiment was conducted for over a year by the MOT with the support of 17 network partners on 5 pilot sites on the French borders, and resulted in a final report available on the MOT website.
On July 21st, 2023, France and Germany signed an agreement on the development of cross-border apprenticeships. This "major bilateral cooperation project" involves establishing a secure legal framework to enable apprentices from both countries to complete the practical or theoretical part of their training in the neighboring country.
On June 11th, 2024, the new national sea and coastal strategy (SNML) for the period 2024-2030 was adopted. The strategy aims to coordinate public policies relating to the sea and coast, and is structured around 18 objectives. The four main priorities are carbon neutrality, biodiversity protection, social equity and the competitiveness of a sustainable blue economy.
Following the floods in inland Flanders in November 2023 and January 2024, which necessitated the activation of the "MAGETEAUX" plan*, the President of the French Republic entrusted François Decoster, Mayor of Saint-Omer, with a mission to analyze our neighbors' flood prevention and management practices and policies.
The POCTEFA program has launched a questionnaire for local residents to identify the border obstacles that affect their daily lives.
The first pilot committee of the SA-URG (Support Sanitaire opérationnel de réponse à l'Urgence transpyrénéenne) project, financed by the European POCTEFA program, was held on June 13th and 14th, 2024 in Bayonne.
To mark its fifteenth anniversary, the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis has interviewed all its stakeholders to retrace the history of the EGTC and outline its future horizons: "elected representatives, partners, technicians, members of civil society... they have all responded to this invitation to look back at the history of the Eurometropolis". The first three episodes are available on the Eurometropolis’s YouTube channel.
On April 23rd, 2024, CESER Grand Est brought together cross-border civil society at a meeting devoted to cross-border living areas. The role of civil society in European policies was debated. Solutions proposed included the creation of a “legal base” to facilitate cross-border cooperation in healthcare, and the simplification of administrative procedures.
"At a time of ecological and financial crisis, territories must support the development of ambitious public policies to decarbonize mobility, despite insufficient financial capacity to meet demand that is complex and costly to satisfy. How, then, can supply and demand for mobility be reconciled?"
For over a year, the MOT has been conducting an experiment on “cross-border living areas”, supported by seventeen partners in five pilot sites. You can now consult the final report and download our infographic of the study's key takeaways. Don't forget to register for our webinar on June 5th!
To influence the debate on the future of EU policies after 2027, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) organized a conference on May 14th in Croatia, in cooperation with the INTERACT program, to draw the attention of decision-makers to the new challenges facing regions and cities, and to discuss the role of European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) in helping to meet these challenges.
A conference entitled “The cross-border living area: a laboratory for European integration between Italy and France” was held in Rome on April 18th, 2024. It brought together researchers, elected representatives and technicians from French and Italian border territories, both land and sea, as well as national administrations. The day of reflection was jointly organized by CERDACFF (DITER), Université Nice Côte d'Azur, and CNR/ ISSIRFA.
Launched three decades ago, the Single European Market is one of the fundamental pillars of European integration. With this in mind, the European Council commissioned Enrico Letta, former head of the Italian government and current president of the Institut Jacques Delors, to draw up an independent high-level report on the future of the Single Market.
The first proposal for a regulation on the European Cross-Border Mechanism ("ECBM"), now renamed "FCBS" ("Facilitating Cross-Border Solutions") dates back to 2018.
A new feature of the Interreg POCTEFA 2021-2027 program, the Functional Areas allow us to work on smaller perimeters.
Discover our project sheets published to coincide with the MOT General Assembly in Dunkirk on June 27th and 28th!
The European elections in June 2024 place cross-border territories and the challenges of “everyday Europe” at the heart of the debate. To mark the occasion, the MOT has launched a dialogue with border citizens, focusing on local, cross-border and European issues. And the West-Vlaanderen - Flanders-Dunkerque-Côte d'Opale EGTC has responded by organizing a citizens' dialogue on its territory:
On April 16th, 2024, a session of the CCT was held in Strasbourg (Hôtel préfectoral), chaired by Florian Hassler, State Secretary for Political Coordination and Europe of Baden-Württemberg, and Josiane Chevalier, Prefect of the Grand Est region. To mark the 5th anniversary of the Treaty of Aachen, the French Ambassador to Germany, François Delattre, attended the proceedings.
On April 11th, 2024, in Strasbourg, a seminar on cross-border governance was organized by the University of Strasbourg and the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. A round-table discussion on the three bilateral treaties (Aachen, Quirinal, Barcelona), attended by the ambassadors in charge of borders in France, Italy and Spain and the German Consul General in Strasbourg, was co-hosted by the Euro-institut and the MOT.
