In light of the elaboration of a new European strategy for the “outermost regions” (ORs), the Regional Development Commission of the European Parliament published a report in March 2017 to promote cohesion and development in the ORs by applying article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) in an innovative and positive manner.
On the occasion of the URBACT City Festival in Tallinn, which ran from 3 to 5 October, the PACA (concerted metropolitan development areas) process implemented by Greater Geneva has been selected and labelled “Good Practice”.
Following the signing on 27 September 2016 of the framework agreement on cross-border health cooperation between France and Switzerland, the first morning of reflection organised by the Trans-Jura Conference, which brought together elected officials and cross-border health cooperation stakeholders, aimed to take stock of existing cross-border cooperation in the field of health and to determine the desired areas for future cooperation.
The MOT participated in the seminar on maritime cooperation, organised within the framework of the PASSAGE project, in Tallinn in September.
On 20 and 21 September 2017 in Brussels, a conference was held to mark the adoption of the Communication entitled “Boosting growth and cohesion in EU border regions”.
On 19 June 2017, new conventions were signed between the President of the Council of State of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, François Longchamp, and the President of the Agglomeration community of Annemasse ,Christian Dupessey, enabling the Swiss Confederation’s participation in the financing of 3 Greater Geneva flagship projects, at a level of 26 million euros.
Every year, the MOT publishes a dossier highlighting exemplary cross-border projects along French borders.
Over the course of the first meeting of the Conference of the Territories (a new platform for exchange, consultation and decision-making headed by the French prime minister), Emmanuel Macron presented the new differentiation of public action, a vector for a new equality of opportunity for the territories.
People-to-people (P2P) projects are small-scale projects, accessible to a wide range of beneficiaries, oriented towards the promotion of contact and exchanges between people from either side of the border.
Within the context of the regional accord for the application of the Espoo Convention (1991) in a tri-national framework, the French-German-Swiss Upper Rhine Conference has published a guide to procedures for cross-border consultations concerning projects, plans and programmes with significant impact on the environment.
Long seen as artificial barriers inherited from decolonisation, West African borders now lie at the heart of policies designed to encourage regional trade and combat political instability.
In association with the Grand Est regional council, the AFIGEO (French Association for Geographic Information) and the CNIG (French National Council for Geographic Information) took the INSPIRE European Conference of 4 and 5 September as an opportunity to bring together French-speaking players of the profession in the context of a “Francophone conference on geographic information”.
Good quality healthcare for the populations of the French-Luxembourgish border regions, made more accessible, more rapid and closer to home - this is the objective of the framework agreement on health cooperation ratified by Luxembourg and France.
On 30 May 2017 at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels, the fifth meeting of the intergovernmental working group on innovative solutions to obstacles to cross-border cooperation was held.
This report was drawn up within the framework of the strengthening and deepening of Franco-Belgian cooperation initiated by the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Prefecture.
This is the aim of the project FagA/Centre d’aide à la mobilité transfrontalière (CAMT – Centre for Assistance with Cross-Border Mobility) launched on 1 July 2016 in the SaarMoselle Eurodistrict.
On 31 May 2017, Anne Sander, MEP and Vice-President of the MOT, organised the sixth meeting of the working group on cross-border cooperation, which addressed the issue of the coordination of social security systems in the context of the revision underway of Regulation No. 883/2004, which lays down the common rules required for this coordination.
Greater Geneva has been awarded the URBACT Good Practice City label for promoting its coordinated conurbation development areas (PACA – Périmètres d'aménagement coordonnés d'agglomération) in cross-border governance.
More user-friendly and better suited to players in the Greater Region but above all to the general public is how the new version of the Greater Region's geoportal, which was officially presented on 23 May, in the presence of Camille Gira, Luxembourg's Secretary of State for sustainable Development and Infrastructure, can be summed up.
On 15 June 2017, the EU "sounded the death knell" for roaming charges in the whole of the European Union.
On 3 June, the MOT took part in the conference entitled "Cross-border cooperation to enhance renewable energy in the EU" organised by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the World Future Council at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
The "Master's in border studies" is an international, interdisciplinary and multilingual study programme aimed at providing students who wish to pursue their careers in intercultural and cross-border settings with the main concepts and necessary analytical tools to understand the issues related to border territories and transnational cooperation.
On 24-25 May in Malta, the ESPON seminar “Revealing territorial potentials and shaping new policies - Contribution to the post-2020 cohesion policy debate” was held, organised by the EGTC in conjunction with the Maltese presidency of the European Union Council.
The MOT has been awarded the "International territorial expertise" label by the Ministry of Europe and European Affairs within the framework of the programme to support territorial authorities' thematic cooperation (PACT3).
