Transcript (Cross-Border) Regions?

Trends in cross-border governance
in Europe: From space to flows?
Martin Klatt, PhD.
Associate Professor of Contemporary History
Dept. of Border Region Studies
Sønderborg
Four dimensions of borders (Anderson)*
1. Instruments of state policy
2. Policies and practices of governments are
controlled by the degree of de facto control
which they have over the state frontier
3. Borders are markers of identity
4. Border is a term of discourse
*Malcolm Anderson: Frontiers, Territory and State Formation in the Modern World,
Oxford 1996
A borderless Europe?
 Four freedoms: goods, capital, services, people
 Art. 13 SEA (1986): ”the internal market shall comprise an
area without internal frontiers”
 1985 (impl. 1995): Schengen agreement
 No regular passport control
 No permanent border guard installations
 No reduced speed or other traffic impediments at the
border
 No permanent video surveillance/electronic registration of
license plates etc.
Schengen
area
In the border regions
 Euroregions, Eurodistricts, European Grouping
of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC)
 Idea: institutionalised cross-border region
 Structure (usual)
 Some kind of agreement (no bilateral treaty)
 Public-private
 Secretariat
 Assembly
 Budget (membership dues, Interreg)
Institutionalised
Cross-border
regions in 2011
Source: Association of
European Border
Regions
Interreg (Territorial Cooperation
Initiative)
 EU program, since 1991, at present in its 4th funding
period (2007-13)
 Funds long-term projects (up to 75 %)
 Partners have to be cross-border
 Integrated project management
 Integrative effect
 Priorities re-negotiated every funding period,
between EU Commission (DG Regio), regions
(Committee of Regions)
Interreg A-regions:
Euroregions = Interreg
regions?
Europe of (Cross-Border) Regions?
 Keating: regionalization of power is not the aim of EU
Regional Policies, nor in the interest of nation states*
 Schmitt-Egner: Transnational Regionalism – regions develop
cross-border action space§
 Multi-level governance: Regions and Cross-border Regions
have become important players in the EU’s system of
multilevel governance
 Cross-border regions as Players within the system of multilevel governance (Perkmann, Schmitt-Egner)
 Or the nation states making the final decisions?
*M. Keating: (2008) A Quarter Century of the Europe of Regions, Regional and Federal Studies 18 (5), 629-635
§P- Schmitt-Egner: Transnationaler Regionalismus als Gegenstand der Politikwissenschaft, in: Bellers/Rosenthal
(eds.): Die Gesellschaftliche Basis von Aussenpolitik…, Münster 2001
Why should border regions
cooperate?
 Blatter/Clement:*
 2 starting points for cross-border cooperation

- material interdependencies and spillovers across
international borders that must be jointly addressed (possible
synergies/avoid negative externalities

- Intrastate tensions/cleavages that motivate regional
actors to look for allies across the border
*J. Blatter/N. Clement: Transborder Collaboration in Europe and North America:
Explaining Similarities and Differences, in: van Houtum/van der Velde (eds): Borders,
Regions and People, London 2000
Why engage in cross-border cooperation
(simplified)?
No CBC-activities
CBC-activities
Cultural and administrative barriers,
geographical distance
Third-party
funding (i.e.
Interreg)
Information on
conditions for
cross-border
cooperation
Not available
Not available
Not significant
available
Available at
additional costs
available
Significant
Differences in attractiveness:
- Culture
- Labour market
- Business opportunities etc.
E. Brunet-Jailly:
Theorizing
Borders: An
Interdisciplinary
Perspective,
Geopolitics 10,
2005, p. 645
Blatter: Spaces of Place and Spaces of
Flow*
 Two types of MLG
 Type I: Federal, jurisdictions around communities
 Type II: Functional, jurisdictions around policy
problems
 RQ: Multiplication of gov’t levels → extended version of
Federalism? Or a process of deterritorialisation, where
inst. of governance are unbundled into a functionally
differentiated system with variable geographic scales
*Joachim Blatter: From 'Spaces of Place' to 'Spaces of Flow'? Territorial and
Functional Governance in Cross-border Regions in Europe and North America,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (2004)
”Governance”
 Encyclopedia Britannica refers to medieval instruments of
royal governance
 Wikipedia: ”governance is what government does”
 Hooghe and Marks: governance dispersed across multiple
centres of authority
 Blatter:
 territorial – federal principle
 functional governance – policy oriented
Policy entrepreneurship*
 Special EU system: weak formal powers, no policy
implementation center
 CBRs: policy driven rather than market driven cases of local
cross-border integration
 CBRs as implementer of EU policies (Interreg)
Markus Perkmann (2007): Policy entrepreneurship and multilevel governance: a comparative study of European
cross-border regions, Environment and Planning C, Vol. 25, 861-897
Øresund – regional cross-border
statistics
”Sleeping customs officers” – art
project in the Euregio (DE-NL)
Information services
An example: Region Sønderjylland-Schleswig
– re-enacting a region?
Forms of cooperation
1. Phase: informal, informative contacts at political level
phase
2. Phase: Concrete cooperation on specific crossborder issues
•
•
Cultural events 1950’s
Pollution in Flensborg Fjord 1971
3. Phase: establishment of cross-border institutions –
euroregion 1997
4. Phase – multiplying of coop. (post 2000)
Cooperation
 Many Interreg-projects
 Cross-border express bus (discontinued)
 Cross-border cycle route
 Cross-border children’s theatre
 Cross-border cultural projects
 Cross-border university educations
 Cross-border business cooperation
 Etc.etc.etc.
 Info centre Border
Zusammenarbeit Syddanmark-Schleswig-Holstein (seit 2007)
-2006 Sønderjyllands Amt
Haderslev (seit
2007)
Fyns Amt
- 2006 Storstrøms Amt
Sønderborg (seit
2007)
Grenzdreieck (seit 2008)
Tønder (seit
2007)
Grenzdreieck (seit 2008)
Aabenraa (seit
2007)
Stadt Flensburg
Kreis Schleswig-Flensburg
Interessengemeinschaft der
Städte Kiel und Neumünster
und der Kreise RendsburgEckernförde und Plön, 20072008 aufgelöst)
Femern Bælt Forum
(seit 2007)
Kreis Ostholstein
seit 1997: Hansestadt
Lübeck
Kreis Nordfriesland
Sønderjylland-Schleswig
(seit 1997)
Fyn-K.E.R.N. (1991-2006)
Ostholstein-Storstrøm (seit
1977)
New cross-border territories?
 Euroregions as a new type of region spanning national
borders?
 Patchy record regarding institution-building and impact on the
cross-border environment
 EU commission assesses its difficult to induce genuine crossborder projects (Interreg)
 Multilevel governance?
 Independent political actors?
 Or just ”policy entrepreneurs”?
Conclusion
 Cross-border governance remains a diffuse term
 Aspects:
 CBRs as facilitator for cross-border projects and crossborder networks
 CBRs as information aggregator
 CBRs as lobbyists for themselves at national and EU level
 But no level in a federal hierarchy
 CBRs as a non-territorial, but functional space
 Risk: from multilevel governance to multilevel confusion!
Conclusion II: Cross-border networks
• Cross-border governance does not exist in the traditional form
of governance by authority
• Clear identification of ‘us’ and ‘them’, divided by the border
• Regional partners can define common interests and lobby for
them at national level
• Flexible networks of demand characterize the cooperation
• Public and private actors intertwine
• Cross-border institutions function as a mediator and/or think
tank
Not so different from the US-Canada
case