Territorial Cooperation for European Cohesion (In What Measure Can ETC Contribute to Achieving the EU Goal of Territorial Cohesion?)

Abstract

Although the single market is at the core of the European Union, borders keep on causing friction to the freedoms of movement and everyday interaction. Most public policies, including economic ones, are designed and implemented within a national framework and end, therefore, at the national boundaries. However, when the citizens’ daily life embraces a cross-border territory, they are confronted with fragmented national policies instead of a cohesive and integrative common framework. There have been significant achievements for border regions within an integrated EU, with milestones like Schengen or territorial cooperation and cohesion, but there is a long way to go. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic has also shown how weak these achievements could be towards the free will of nation-states. To be “natural” laboratories of European cohesion and integration, and they have shown they can, cross-border regions need a different approach, being considered functional areas and guaranteed a minimum operativity for daily cross-border activities even in emergency situations. Interreg, the funding arm of European Territorial Cooperation, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2020. Hundreds of programmes and projects have significantly triggered territorial cohesion across the continent over three decades. Cross-border structures and their networks have made this possible. Other EU instruments like the EGTCs have amplified the opportunities already opened by pioneer Euroregions well before the first earmarking of European funds for territorial cooperation. In particular, border regions today are starting to be seen as laboratories where innovative solutions for cohesion are developed and piloted. In no other territory like a (cross-)border region do citizens daily feel the benefits and the challenges of the European single market, still a utopia in many fields. But its perception in cross-border territories would mean effective cohesion. This chapter discusses how European territorial cooperation (ETC) has managed to be a key factor for territorial cohesion, a crucial but relatively recent component of European cohesion. And how it has overcome many difficulties to progress while notoriously drawing the attention of policymakers (and scholars) as a very genuine, valuable and promising cohesion tool. It also discusses the interference with national sovereignty conceptions and how going beyond financial support in search of trust across borders could be a tool of evermore importance.