The draft opinion of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on the European Cross-Border Mechanism 2.0 (rapporteur Magali Altounian) was unanimously adopted by the COTER Commission on June 23rd, 2023, with a view to final adoption in October 2023.
At the invitation of the Moselle department and the Metz Eurometropolis, both members of the MOT network, the MOT's annual event brought together almost 150 participants from all across France over the course of two days, on the 27th and 28th of June.
On June 19th and 20th, 2023, the first symposium on Italo-French cross-border cooperation was held in Menton, organised by researchers from the CNR-ISSIRFA and the CERDAFF-DITER. It brought together a large number of academics, technicians, and politicians to discuss the challenges of Italo-French cross-border cooperation.
On the border between France, Germany and Luxembourg, the cross-border territory hosting the MOT’s general assembly on June 27th and 28th, 2023, in Metz is a hub for cross-border news, projects and issues. Joint interview with Patrick Weiten, president of the department of Moselle and former member of Parliament, and François Grosdidier, president of Metz Eurometropolis and mayor of Metz.
In 2023, the Jura Mountains Development Commission (Commissariat à l'aménagement du Massif du Jura), which is responsible for defining the objectives and actions needed for the development, planning and protection of the mountain range, undertook a cross-border study.
A meeting between Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice and president of the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolitan Area, and Claudio Scajola, mayor of Imperia and president of the Province of Imperia, on the 19th of May in Nice, provided an opportunity to present a cross-border coastal development programme between the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolitan Area and the Province of Imperia, and another programme focusing on the mountains between the Vésubie and Tinée valleys and the neighbouring valleys of the Provinces of Imperia and Cuneo.
In 2022, the French mayors' association (Association des Maires de France) set up a working group on cross-border cooperation, the inaugural meeting of which was held last October.
Initiated in December 2019, the TRISAN project "Trinational action plan for cross-border healthcare in the Upper Rhine", led by the Euro-Institute, came to an end on May 31st, 2023.
On Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 the MOT hosted a conference on France-Luxembourg cross-border cooperation organised by the Meurthe-et-Moselle department.
The MOT was present on Tuesday, May 23rd, at the Palais des Congrès in Paris for the ANCTour, an event bringing together all the services, programmes and schemes of the Agence Nationale de la Cohésion des Territoires.
The conference to launch the new cross-border legal access point, located at the heart of the Strasbourg-Kehl conurbation, was held on May 10th, 2023 at the Strasbourg judicial court. Its chairman, Thierry Ghera, gives us his view on this new service, the first of its kind in Europe.
On May 17th, 2023, a meeting between the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, and Père Aragones, president of Catalonia, in Barcelona, agreed on the creation of a cross-border working group, the aim of which will be to improve water management and help populations cope with drought.
Since 2007, the "Targeted Analyses" of the ESPON programme have supported the process of territorial development in Europe, at local, regional and national levels. These analyses include sound methodologies and scientific expertise to provide tailor-made analytical studies to support territorial decision-making. The new call for proposals for the ESPON 2030 Programme is open until June 23rd 2023!
Cross-border obstacles affect the daily development of cross-border living areas and services dedicated to their inhabitants. The reduction of these obstacles requires a high degree of cooperation between Member States. That is why, in 2018, the European Commission proposed a tool, the "European Cross-Border Mechanism" (ECBM), dedicated to the resolution of cross-border legal and administrative obstacles. But the Commission's proposal for a regulation on this tool is currently stalled at the Council.
The conference "Living in Border Regions - Tackling the challenges" was organized on April 17th, 2023, in Brussels, by the European Alliance for Cross-Border Citizens (CoR, MOT, AEBR, CESCI). Its objective was to study the possible ways to relaunch the draft regulation on the "European Cross-Border Mechanism" (ECBM).
At the beginning of May, the European Commission published its report on the programming of the cohesion policy 2021-2027. It foresees the creation of 1.3 million jobs in Europe by the end of the programming period, with an increase of 0.5% of the EU GDP and up to 4% in some Member States.
The Treaty of Aachen mandated the Franco-German Cross-Border Cooperation Committee (CBC) to analyse the impact of legislation on border regions, with the aim of avoiding "the emergence of new legal difficulties in everyday cross-border life".
At the conference "Border Region Academy: Border regions of Germany with its neighboring countries" organized by the German Federal Office for Spatial Planning on April 20th and 21st in Berlin, in which the MOT participated, several significant studies for cross-border cooperation were presented.
This study, which has just been published by the Institut Montaigne, establishes a detailed diagnosis of the employment situation in the territory of the European Metropolis of Lille, and aims to identify the various levers that would allow action to be taken to better match the Lille labor market.
To produce a map based on the feelings of citizens, the Forum of the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai - who constitutes its citizen assembly - launched this project a year ago to capture the "emotional landscape of the cross-border living area".
Financed within the framework of the Interreg Grande Région program, the RECOTTE [RECOnversion of Territories through Ecological Transition] project focused on the reconversion of territories through ecological transition on a local cross-border scale.
The 7th Franco-Luxembourg Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) was held in Thionville on April 17th, 2023, in the presence of Laurence Boone, Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, responsible for Europe, and Corinne Cahen, Minister for the Greater Region of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
On May 2nd, 2023, the 4th meeting of the "Cross-border ecological transition" working group of the MOT network, which brought together about thirty participants around the question: "how to better involve citizens in the ecological transition of cross-border territories?", took place.
I was entrusted last March with the presidency of the cross-border strategy of Ardennes initiated in 2019 by the MOT and the Belgian intermunicipal structure IDELUX. The latter covers the territory of the Ardennes department and the Walloon provinces of Luxembourg and Namur.
