This article examines cross-border integration at the sub-state level in the frame of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC). The EGTC is a supranational and directly applicable EU ...legal instrument that regulates the creation of cross-border 'associations' with legal personality between public authorities. Thus, it represents a policy tool that can have an effect on the institutional frame of cross-border cooperation and potentially enhance cross-border institutional integration at the sub-state level. The aim of this article is to examine the potential effect of this EU instrument on cross-border institutional integration by studying the institutional architecture of selected EGTCs. This is done on the basis of an analytical grid that defines elements of a possible integration process based on an institutional-oriented approach. This analytical grid is applied to four case studies: the Eurométropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the EGTC Ister-Granum, the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion and the European Region Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino. The empirical analysis shows that despite the considerable improvement of the legal basis for cooperation, the possible effect of the EGTC for further institutional cross-border integration is still rather limited due to a narrow design of institutions and a low level of actor involvement.
Cross-border areas in Europe are promoted as places of integration, whose cooperation is encouraged by the Interreg programme and the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) tool. For ...the 2021-2027 Cohesion Pack, the European Commission proposed the European Cross-Border Mechanism (ECBM), a regulation that would allow one member state to apply the law of a neighbouring member state to facilitate cross-border projects. This mechanism represents a paradigm shift, empowering border areas to manage their own integration (functional-horizontal) and institutionalise a policy pathway for resolving border-specific legal or administrative obstacles (institutional-vertical). This paper analyses the dynamics behind the ECBM proposal according to the multiple streams framework (MSF), revealing policy and politics streams' elements to explain agenda setting in EU policy processes. Methodologically, we apply a document analysis with qualitative content and cross-case analysis elements, and a combined strategy of deductive-inductive codes. This analysis is complemented and validated by expert interviews.
This paper focusses on the role of border regions in the governance of refugee flows. By analyzing the political discourse with regard to refugees and asylum seekers in the Euroregion Tyrol-South ...Tyrol-Trentino, the paper evaluates the strength of ideational ties and of ideological frames for cross-border, policy-making capabilities in a contested policy field. The paper further develops the framing of the ideational dimension of cross-border cooperation by shifting the focus from the individual to the collective political level and from symbols to political discourse. Due to the favorable and institutionalized framework of cross-border cooperation, we assume strong ideational ties to increase the policy-making capability of border regions in the governance of migration flows independent from national frameworks. We show that regardless of the institutionalization of cross-border cooperation and frequent references to the Euroregion in the political discourse of all sub-state parliaments, the ideational frame for common actions regarding refugees and asylums seekers is eclipsed by the national context that continues to outweigh a local transnational identity. This hinders the capability of common policy making within cross-border regions. Nevertheless, we argue that border regions have the potential to fill a gap in the multilevel governance of migration by becoming mediators across borders and between states.
Crossborder cooperation has generally been recognized as an important mechanism to enhance minority protection; the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities ...(FCNM), for instance, foresees that states should not constrain "the right of persons belonging to national minorities to establish and maintain free and peaceful contacts across frontiers with persons lawfully staying in other States, in particular those with whom they share an ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious identity, or a common cultural heritage" (article 17, para. 1). With the creation of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, the European Commission has provided a striking new instrument for enhancing and organizing territorial cooperation throughout the Union. In fact, Regulation (EC) No. 1082/2006 is the EC-Regulation that gives specific and substantial rights to local, regional and national public authorities from different countries to set up joint structures for more efficient cooperation. The aim of the present article is to analyze the concrete set-up and functioning of established EGTCs in border regions with national minorities or linguistic groups in order to assess how this instrument can foster cohesion in a pluri-ethnic context. The conceptual framework is a comprehensive concept of territorial cohesion that considers minority protection and minority inclusion as an essential condition to ensure a sustainable (social, economic and ecological) development of the European Union.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Abstract
The violent conflicts that erupted after the breakup of communist regimes (especially in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) have gradually changed the standing of minority ...rights and minority protection: first, the differential treatment of minority groups has become a legitimate—if not necessary—instrument to guarantee equality and stability, and, second, minority-rights legislation and minority protection are increasingly regarded as a responsibility shared among national and international actors. This inter-relationship between international instruments and national legal provisions can be usefully observed particularly in the states that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia. Due to the necessity of ensuring peace and stability, the constitutions of these emerging states have been increasingly influenced by international norms and standards for minority protection—a process that can be characterized as the 'internationalization of constitutional law'. This article assesses these developments, at both the national and international levels, in order to shed light on the particular inter-relationship among these different layers, by looking at the example of selected Western Balkan states.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) is a legal instrument designed to promote territorial cooperation between entities from different states.² It was created in 2006 by a European ...Union (EU) regulation, and allows public entities and authorities related to the public sector to associate and act together with a legal personality in order to enhance territorial cooperation.
Cooperation between sub-state authorities from different states has developed since the 1950s as a concrete initiative to foster local and regional development, especially in border regions, and has become a widespread practice in Europe over the past few decades.³ As a cooperation
