MOT workshop at the European Week of Regions and Cities 2019 on energy transition

Description of the Workshop

Neither the climate nor energy recognise national borders. Yet public policies are implemented within national frameworks that differ from one country to another. Cross-border territories, laboratories of European integration, are the places where these differences come up against one another and where new opportunities for cooperation emerge.
As a cross-cutting issue, the energy transition can be effectively addressed in cross-border contexts.  The aim is to develop a shared territory in a sustainable manner, to face common challenges together, and to manage shared natural resources, taking the cross-border living area as the level of action. This makes it possible to create networks or to pool infrastructures, to share good practices, to coordinate actions taken or implement joint ones.
In fact, energy transition strategies do not only involve the production of energy, but also transport, territorial development, and the management of natural areas and hazards.
By presenting a variety of initiatives across European terrestrial and maritime borders, this workshop aimed at further recognising the potential for cross-border cooperation in this unexplored field.

Four case studies illustrated some of their lessons learnt and how obstacles were overcome locally:

• The marine renewable energy (MRE) sector in the Euroregion New Aquitaine - Euskadi-Navarra, which gives the opportunity to study the conditions for a win-win strategy in this field, from the Euroregional to the European level.
• The Strasbourg-Ortenau Eurodistrict, as a territory testing participatory and citizen-centred approaches to renewable energy and climate adaptation.
• The Union of Harju County Municipalities (Estonia), which is piloting a series of projects for a "low-carbon" transition in the Gulf of Finland, including sustainable cross-border mobility in the strait between Tallinn and Helsinki.
• The Haut-Rhin Département, where innovation and energy transition are the two priorities of the local strategy for the post-Fessenheim period, also aimed at strengthening cross-border synergies with German municipalities.