Cooperation Between European Border Regions

In this collection, the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) examines the important results and achievements of 40 years of cross-border cooperation. The book describes the accomplishments of the AEBR at a European level, the developments in different parts of Europe, key elements of successful cross-border cooperation, as well as the contribution of cross-border cooperation to a European integration based on regional diversity. The "European house" needs to be built from the bottom, while resting on solid foundations. And these foundations are made from the day-to-day cooperation of people, municipalities, and regions across borders. The perspectives of cross-border cooperation are of vital importance for Europe. The Treaty of Lisbon and the EU Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 set the framework for the future. One thing is certain, for many years to come, cross-border cooperation will remain a political priority of the EU.

Focussing European borders: The book provides insight into a variety of changes in the nature of borders in Europe and its neighborhood from various disciplinary perspectives. Special attention is paid to the history and contemporary dynamics at Polish and German borders. Of particular interest are the creation of Euroregions, mutual perceptions of Poles and Germans at the border, EU Regional Policy, media debates on the extension of the Schengen area. Analysis of cross-border mobility between Abkhazia and Georgia or the impact of Israel's »Security Fence« to Palestine on society complement the focus on Europe with a wider view.

The "deepening and widening" of the EU has thrown its changing internal and external borders into sharp relief. This work demonstrates that borders are key spaces within which issues such as identity, memory and trust, and communication between states continue to be played out and transformed.

This work is the first dictionary on cross border cooperation The theoretical part is helpful to understand cross border cooperation. The geographical part presents more specific articles treating about the actors, the structures, the policies, the programs, and the different areas of such cooperation; supplemented by a map.

Scholarly interest in the study of state borders and border regions is growing in Europe, keeping pace with the remarkable changes associated with the transformation of old borders and the creation of new ones in the European Union and beyond over the last fifteen years. Social scientists have increasingly examined cross-border co-operation as one way to understand the changes which affect European borderlands. Ironically, given the recent turn to issues of culture and identity in the social sciences, one of the most neglected aspects of the critical and comparative analysis of cross-border co-operation has been culture. Culture and Cooperation in Europe's Borderlands, the first collection of essays to provide multidisciplinary perspectives on these issues in European borderlands, presents three modes of analysis of culture and cross-border co-operation as a tentative way forward to redress this imbalance. These overlapping perspectives, on cultures of co-operation, co-operation about culture, and the impact of culture on forms of co-operation, are offered as possible strategies in the comparative social science of European borderlands. The contributions to this collection examine some or all of the following: - cross-border cooperation about culture, in such areas of culture as tradition, language use and rights, and education. - cross-border cooperation and culture, i.e., in ways in which ‘culture’ enhances or hinders economic and political co-operation across state borders, as for example, through issues of national, regional and local identity, cultural practices, and ethnic relations. - the culture of cooperation, i.e., ways in which co-operation across borders creates new cultural codes, political practices, organizational cultures and transnational social and political institutions.

This book looks both backward and forward with regard to the European Union’s political strategies towards its neighbouring countries. By bringing together the perspectives of critical geopolitics, policy studies and border studies, it presents a comprehensive review of the European Neighbourhood Policy and how it impacts the ongoing construction of the EU’s external frontiers. Is the EU committed to promoting integration in a ‘wider’ European space, or is a “fortress Europe” emerging where the strengthening of internal cohesion is coupled with the militarisation of its external borders? The book aims to problematize this question by showing how the EU’s external policies are based on a mixture of openness and closure, inclusion and exclusion, cooperation and securitisation. The European Neighbourhood Policy is a controversial strategy where regionalization and bordering, homogenisations and differentiations, centrifugal and centripetal forces proceed side-by-side, in an explicit attempt to construct a selective, mobile and fragmented border. A specific focus is devoted to the diversity of geo-strategies the EU is pursuing in its neighbouring countries and regions, macro-regional strategies and cross-border cooperation initiatives as new scales of cooperation, and the role of other global players.

This book fills an existing academic literature gap by providing a sound and synthetic analysis on the process of European Territorial Cooperation over the last 30 years. This follows from the support from the former EU INTERREG Community Initiative, since 1989, later transformed into the second main goal of EU Cohesion Policy, by 2007: European Territorial Cooperation - ECT. In order to present the ECT process in a more comprehensive manner, and to be the main literature reference regarding this process in the decades to come, this book is divided into four different sections and 12 chapters. The first section summarizes the main impacts and added-value from ETC experiences while proposing the elevation of the ETC goals within EU Cohesion Policies. The second section addresses the process of cross-border cooperation, and namely its impact in reducing border obstacles and supporting ever growing number of cross-border entities. The third section elaborates on the second most important ETC process (transnational cooperation) with a similar approach. Finally, a last section debates the future scenarios for this process in Europe.