On March 6th and 7th, 2025, a seminar entitled ‘The Quirinal Treaty and the maritime border, Corsica and the maritime living area: a relevant concept for close cross-border cooperation’ was held in Bastia.
On February 6th, 2025, the second meeting of the Franco-Italian Border Cooperation Committee set up by the Quirinal Treaty was held in Nice It follows the meeting held in October 2023 in Turin. The MOT was present at this meeting.
As part of the Franco-Italian friendship reaffirmed by the Quirinal Treaty, the autonomous region of Aosta Valley and the Haute-Savoie department have formalised their cooperation by signing a strengthened partnership agreement on the 23rd and 24th of January 2025.
The end of 2024 marked the start of a new mission for the MOT: supported by the Piedmont Region as lead partner, the A-MONT initiative (cross-border mountain framework agreement) which aims to strengthen the dynamics of territorial cooperation between France and Italy in the Northern Alps.
In 2021, border workers travel an average of 34 km to get to work, compared with 14 km for non-border workers living in the same areas. The majority go by car. 18% of them have journeys of 50 km or more, and there are significantly more of these long journeys than in 2010.
Saturday, November 30th, saw the 2nd edition of the ‘Franco-Italian cooperation symposium’, organised by the Communauté d'Agglomération de la Riviera française in Menton.
The "Southern Alps Cross-Border Alliance", announced in February 2024 by the Metropole Nice Côte d'Azur, the Province of Imperia and the Province of Cuneo, presented its roadmap on November 29th, 2024, in Nice.
The Franco-Italian border is often associated with difficulties and problems of various kinds, often making it difficult for genuine ‘cross-border living areas’ to emerge, as envisaged by the Quirinal Treaty. This is precisely the spirit in which the Alcotraité project's annual event was held in Turin on November 26th, to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Quirinal Treaty.
The Observ'Alp partners met in Turin in December 2024 to discuss the initial results of the project and the next steps. The project, funded by the Interreg ALCOTRA programme, aims to set up the first system for observing and sharing territorial data and digital services between border areas, and more specifically between France, Italy and the Principality of Monaco.
As part of its mission to analyse and support border territories, the MOT is launching a new series of publications dedicated to cross-border monitoring. This first issue is devoted to a key topic: the dynamics of the economy and employment in cross-border contexts, and more specifically the flows of cross-border workers on the French borders. In French only.
Each year, the compensation system for cross-border workers represents an additional cost of around 800 M€ for the French unemployment insurance scheme. Following the publication of its report, the Unédic, that manages French unemployment insurance, is calling for a renegotiation of agreements with neighboring countries.
The 2024 edition of the Saint-Dié International Geography Festival (FIG), the annual meeting place for French-speaking geographers, will focus on border issues. In addition to this year's theme, ‘Lands’, an opportunity to explore the challenge of ZAN (Net Zero Artificialisation) and its implications, the guest territory for the 2024 edition was a macro-regional area familiar to the MOT network: the Alpine Arc.
On September 1st, the Savoy Department and the Aosta Valley organized the first Alpine Festival at the Little St Bernard Pass.
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!
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.
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.
The report entitled "Les nouveaux enjeux de développement des territoires de montagne : Pour une montagne vivante en 2030" ("New development challenges for mountain regions: For a living mountain in 2030") by Joël Giraud, Member of Parliament for the Hautes-Alpes, has just been published.
On April 11th and 12th, 2024, the partners of Observ'Alp, a project financed by the Interreg ALCOTRA program, met in Marseille to continue their work on cross-border observation (France-Italy-Monaco) and take part in the second meeting of the Steering Committee (COPIL) and the Collective Intelligence Committee (CIC).
Law 2016-41 of 26 January 2016 on the modernisation of France's healthcare system introduced a new "Regional Health Project" (PRS), maintained in principle, with three new components: a 10-year Strategic Orientation Framework (COS), a single 5-year Regional Health Scheme (SRS) and a Regional Programme on Access to Prevention and Care for the Most Deprived (PRAPS).
A "Southern Alps Cross-border Alliance" was launched on February 8th 2024 in Imperia in the presence of Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, President of the Métropole Nice Côte d'Azur and Deputy President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region, and Claudio Scajola, Mayor of Imperia and President of the Province of Imperia.
The Corsican Territorial Authority (Collectivité de Corse) and the Autonomous Region of Sardinia have launched a fundamental process of cooperation to ensure joint management of environmental issues in the Bucchi di Bunifaziu area.
From the English Channel to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, cooperation in sea basins was at the heart of discussions at the conference on Regional Cooperation in Maritime Areas (ReCMA), organised in September by the University of Lille, the TVES laboratory and the MOT. To report on this work, the MOT is publishing a "Focus" on this theme at the heart of European integration.
For almost a year, the MOT, supported by sixteen partners, has been conducting a "cross-border living areas" experiment on five pilot sites on the French borders: PAMINA Eurodistrict (French-German border), the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis (French-Belgian border), Nord Lorrain - Luxembourg (French-Luxembourg border), Southern Alps - Riviera (French-Italian-Monegasque border) and Franco-Vaud-Geneva conurbation (French-Swiss border)
