For almost a decade, the Cerdagne hospital has demonstrated that a cross-border public hospital service can operate within a controlled budget, with an increasing number of patients, and a hybrid legal model, an example of a concrete achievement of the Europe of Health.
At the beginning of 2023, the DG REGIO of the European Commission together with the OECD have launched a pilot project for multi-level governance and the development of co-developed cross-border strategies.
On Friday, March 17th, 2023 the 3rd meeting of the MOT working group "Cross-border ecological transition" was held on the theme of decarbonizing cross-border mobility. The exchanges were organized in two parts.
On Thursday, January 19th, 2023, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Pedro Sànchez signed an important Franco-Spanish cooperation treaty, the "Treaty of Barcelona ", in the Catalan capital. What advances does it contain in terms of cross-border cooperation?
With a track record of more than 24 years, the "Living Pyrenees Education" network brings together more than 85 structures specializing in environmental education on the Pyrenean cross-border scale between France, Spain and Andorra.
Published in paper format in 2020, this major publication, to which the MOT contributed, is finally available online.
The environment knows no borders, and neither does the climate!
Find the call of the border elected representatives in Bayonne from the MOT general assembly on October 5th, and the response of Dominique Faure, French Secretary of State to the Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, responsible for rurality, who closed the assembly.
Review of the MOT workshop at the #EURegionsWeek.
The MOT's annual event takes place on October 4th and 5th in Bayonne and San Sebastián. Read the editorial by Jean-René Etchegaray, President of the Basque Country Community, published for the occasion.
The Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière has chosen the Basque Country to host its General Assembly and we are very honoured. With its 150 km of borders and its position at the heart of Western Europe, our territory has a long history of cross-border cooperation, reinforced by the creation of the Basque Country Community in 2017.
In January, the Conseil départemental des Pyrénées-Atlantiques and the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa launched a new experiment: a joint participatory budget, called ideaiak, to encourage inhabitants to develop projects that create links between the two territories.
What is the role of border areas with respect to European citizenship? How do local players respond to hosting displaced people in their territory? These are three questions that Chantal Jouanno, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul and María Ángeles Elorza Zubiría, all speakers at the forthcoming Borders Forum, will attempt to answer.
Focus on two border initiatives at the heart of the European project.
The Occitanie Region, the Pyrénées-Orientales Department and the Generalitat de Catalunya have announced that five cross-border bus services launched as part of the European project "ConnECT" are to be made permanent.
On 8 March 2022, the MOT took part in Franco-Spanish working seminar that took place in Paris with Paco Boya, the Spanish State Secretary for the Demographic Challenge, and Joël Giraud, the French Minister for Territorial Cohesion.
"This is unique in France – we are the first!” declared Jean-Jacques Lasserre, the President of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Departmental Council, on 27 January, accompanied by the Deputy-General of Gipuzkoa, at a press conference held to launch an innovative project named "ideiak 2022".
The Occitanie Region, the Generalitat of Catalonia and the government of the Balearic Islands approved in Brussels on Thursday the creation of a Youth Parliament. An initiative of the Occitanie Region, and its Vice-President, Nadia Pellefigue, which holds the rotating presidency of the Euroregion until the end of the year. We may recall that 2022 is the "European Year of Youth".
After the AGUR(1), AGAPE(2) and the Saint-Omer AUD(3), the MOT has the pleasure of welcoming two new urban planning agencies into its network: the Besançon Centre Franche-Comté Urban Planning Agency (AUDAB) and the Atlantic-Pyrenees Urban Planning Agency (AUDAP).
At a time when the closure of borders highlights the issues relating to cross-border living areas and their cohesion, the provision of public services specific to these territories was the subject of a dedicated workshop at the FNAU’s last national conference.
On 7 December in Brussels, the French Health Minister, Olivier Véran, and his Spanish counterpart, Carolina Darias, signed a declaration of intent concerning the cross-border hospital in Puigcerdá, which sets out the framework for cooperation with respect to healthcare professionals practising between the two countries.
At its annual plenary council meeting on 13 December in Alp, in Cerdanya, the members of the Communauté de Travail des Pyrénées (CTP – Working Community of the Pyrenees) unveiled a new “Pyrenees Climate Change Strategy” (EPiCC).
On the occasion of the 42nd national meetings of the FNAU*, the MOT jointly led a workshop with the Agence d’Urbanisme Atlantique et Pyrénées (AUDAP) on the topic of public service provision and access in cross-border contexts.
This autumn, and for the second consecutive year, the MOT organised nine “territorial meetings”, so as to keep in close contact with the members of its network, and involve them in preparing its annual programme. Held successively in Besançon, Strasbourg, Lille, Annemasse, Charleville-Mézières, Nice, Urrugne, Perpignan and Metz, both virtually and in person, the meetings brought together close to 200 participants in total.
Launched in 2017 for a five-year period, the project “Civil Society in the Upper Rhine” presented its final assessment at the closing day held by the PAMINA Eurodistrict EGTC on 9 November 2021 in Lauterbourg. Funded within the framework of the Interreg VA Upper Rhine programme, it aimed to “involve civil society players more in the joint construction of cross-border daily life”.
