Après une phase de lente maturation, la coopération transfrontalière s'est progressivement développée à la faveur d'un certain nombre d'initiatives, notamment le Programme d'Action et de Coopération ...européen ou PACTE, signé en 1 989, entre la Région Wallonne, la Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais, le Département du Nord et l'État français, puis les accords multilatéraux qui ont suivi, avec la Région Flamande et le Kent.
INTERREG, assurant depuis 1992 le financement de nombreux projets communs, a dopé la coopération transfrontalière et contribué à faire naître un sentiment d'appartenance à une entité plus large, l'Eurorégion.
Celle-ci est caractérisée par le poids économique de ses différentes composantes et l'intensité des échanges de personnes et de biens qu'elle génère, sans toutefois qu'il soit possible de mesurer ces derniers avec précision, les données chiffrées n'existant pas à cet échelon de territoire.
En tout état de cause, les progrès du marché intérieur et l'introduction de l'EURO vont nécessairement amplifier le processus d'intégration économique et sociale au sein de l'Eurorégion, surtout s'il s'accompagne d'un assouplissement du cadre juridique de la coopération transfrontalière.
After a slow maturation process, cross border cooperation has been continually developping, thanks to a number of initiatives, such as the european Action and Cooperation Pact (PACT), which was signed in 1989. PACT was followed by others multilateral agreements involving North-Pas-de-Calais Region, in France, Flander and Wallonnia Regions, in Belgium, and Kent, in Great Britain.
The INTERREG program has further increased cross border cooperation, by financing numerous joint operations, and leading inhabitants of these regions to realize that they belonged to a wider concept, that could be defined as the "Euroregion".
This area is characterised by the importants of persons and goods exchanges. Unfortunally it is difficult to evaluate precisely the impact of these interactions, due to a lack of adequate data at this geographic scale.
Increasing common market exchanges and the introduction of EURO will obviously amplify greatly the social and economic integration inside the Euroregion, especially if the legal framework of cross border cooperation is clarified and simplified.
The region of Alsace, which in the past was strongly marked by the divisive nature of its border, is now characterised by its unifying effect. Numerous initiatives, supported politically and ...financially by a varied range of organisations such as local and central governments, Universities and the European Commission, have been undertaken to lessen the effects of the border. Most of these initiatives have occured within the framework of the Upper Rhine, which represents both a geographical entity and a political idea, and which has become the focus for a ??? policy of cross- border regional development. However, despite such intentions, what are the real results of these different policies and initiatives ? In reality, the weight of history, in other words the « old border », has made it difficult to establish the idea of a « new border », unifying rather than dividing the banks of the Rhine.
Ligne ambivalente, la frontière est à la fois séparation et zone de contact. L'Alsace, profondément marquée dans le passé par l'effet séparateur du découpage, est aujourd'hui atteinte par la grâce de son effet rassembleur. Tout un ensemble d'initiatives, soutenues politiquement et financièrement par des organismes aussi divers que les collectivités locales, les universités, les Etats-nations ou la Commission européenne, sont développées afin d'atténuer les effets de la frontière. La plupart de ces initiatives s'inscrivent dans le cadre du Rhin Supérieur, à la fois entité géographique et idée politique, qui devient progressivement le réceptacle d'une véritable politique de développement régional transfrontalier. Mais, au delà des volontés affichées, quels sont les fruits concrets de ces politiques menées par des intervenants aussi divers ? La "nouvelle frontière", unifiant les rives du Rhin au lieu de les diviser, a dans la réalité bien du mal à s'affirmer tant pèse sur elle le poids du temps, ... c'est-à-dire le poids de l'ancienne frontière !
The topic of the essay is the cross-border cooperation within the framework of the Ems Dollart Region (EDR). Against the background of the negative development possibilities of many border regions, ...the essay deals with the possibilities and deficits of cross-border co-operation in the northern German-Dutch border regions. To what extent is EDR capable to contribute to internal development in the form of an intensified cooperation? After a general description of the disadvantages suffered by a location so close the border as well as of the EU INTERREG programme, the Euroregion EDR is described in detail. The origins of the cross-border co-operation in the northern German-Dutch border region stretch back to the fifties. The EDR was established in 1977. Since its first days, the organisational structure of the co-operation has changed in many areas. Above all, in addition to the organisational division in board, committees and administration, the EDR has, since the end of the eighties, had a three-part implementation organisation, the INTERREG, which is responsible for the initiation, coordination, support and management of the projects financed within the framework of the INTERREG programme. While the INTERREG projects are co-financed by the EU, the EDR finances its own budget from member ship fees as well as from subsidies provided by the Dutch Ministry for the Economy, the provinces of Groningen and Drent he as well as the state of Lower Saxony. Due to the considerable subsidies provided by the EU -amounting to ca. 43 million DM between 1994 and 1999- the INTERREG programme is of decisive importance for the project work within the co-operation. The last section of the essay evaluates the actual work of the EDR. One decisive point of criticism in this context is the supreme significance of exogenous financial sources for the actual cross-border project work. This does not only mean dependency from exogenous financing, but also rather a de facto dominance of the decisive organs of the EDR by outside persons and institutions. In addition, the co-operation succeeded in bringing together numerous regional figures within the framework of actual projects, thus improving the circumstances for the mobilisation of endogen ous potential. A more comprehensive success fails as a result of the unwillingness of many regional representatives to enter into cross-border co-operation. A widespread competitive philosophy and the tendency towards jealous regional policies are decisive causes for this.
The intermunicipal, cross-border co-operation in the European border regions has experienced a dynamic thrust of development in the last few years. This was facilitated by the changes in the ...political, legal and financial framework conditions, to which the community initiative INTERREG provided a considerable contribution. An additional factor in the Saar-Lor-Lux region is that subunits form in the actual border regions within the generously measured, regional work areas of the interregional co-operation, characterised by a fairy homogenous regional structure. Using three case examples, it is demonstrated that cross-border organisation structures have developed within these small regions on a municipal level. These are being institutionalised more and more. Using the regional development model of the network of cities, which is being discussed with regards to its cross-border applicability, we can in this context speak of local co-operation networks. In the case of the Agglomération Transfrontalière du Pôle Européen de Développement (PED) in the Belgian-French-Luxembourg state triangle, the participating local authority districts and government authorities have joined together to form an association and maintain a joint Observatoire de l'Urbanisme, responsible among other things since 1996 for the registration and processing of regional data as well as for the development of land use concepts. The M eeting of Mayors and/or the Ronde des Trois Frontières, responsible for the development of tourism in the German-French-Luxembourg Moselle Valley, are considerably less formal network structures. The co-operation between the border local authority districts was institutionalised in the Saar-Rosselle region in the form of the Intermunicipal Association for Work. The latter maintains a co-operation office with the Saarbrücken city association, principally responsible for co-ordination tasks with regards to current and developing, cross-border projects. Despite the depicted structural and legal impediments, an increased institutionalisation of the co-operations can be observed; this goes hand in hand with a topical diversification, which deincreasingly covers subject areas which have been avoided up until now because of the potential conflicts found therein, as demonstrated by the example of the joint commercial area development in the case of the Agglomération du PED. These observed case examples deal with increasingly integrated core regions within a border region which can provide important impulses for the interregional and also international dialogue. At the same time, practical measures were implemented on this level, which are perceived by the local population in day to day life and therefore have greater identity-forming effects. In this context, these measures can provide an essential or even exemplary contribution to overcoming the interior borders of the EU. These approaches can be understood as being a basis for integration "from the bottom up" which make a greater sustainability and acceptance in the various sectors of day to day living more probable, unlike the top-down forces which dominate the realisation of the European common market or the currency union.
La réflexion sur l'aménagement du territoire communautaire a été engagée à Nantes en 1989. Depuis lors, les travaux de la Commission européenne et ceux des rencontres informelles régulières des ...ministres de l'aménagement du territoire des Etats membres ont nettement mis en évidence la nécessité, pour l'Union européenne, de se doter d'une stratégie intégrée d'aménagement du territoire. Les années récentes ont vu se tisser des liens d'interdépendance profonde entre les diverses parties du territoire européen, même entre régions très éloignées l'une de l'autre. Par ailleurs, de nombreuses politiques communautaires exercent une influence non négligeable sur le développement territorial du continent. Jusqu'ici, leur impact n'est cependant guère mesuré ni coordonné sur le terrain.
La stratégie territoriale de l'Union sera contenue dans le Schéma de développement de l'espace communautaire (S.D.E.C.), dont l'élaboration a été décidée fin 1993. Une première esquisse officielle de ce document devrait être présentée aux ministres compétents en juin 1997 à Noordwijk, aux Pays-Bas. Les principes généraux (dits "principes de Leipzig") sur lesquels il se fondera ont été adoptés en 1994. Dans sa version finale, le S.D.E.C., bien que juridiquement non contraignant, indiquera diverses mesures concrètes de mise en oeuvre, afin que la stratégie proposée soit suivie d'effets dans les Etats membres, dans la coopération transnationale et au niveau communautaire.
La volonté d'agir ensemble pour relever une série de défis commun ne doit pas cacher la grande diversité des quinze traditions nationales en matière d'aménagement du territoire. Le contenu donné à cette notion même diffère d'un Etat membre à l'autre. L'importance très variable reconnue à la planification régionale, comprise comme synthèse entre planification physique globale et stratégie de développement économique, est un facteur déterminant, particulièrement révélateur de la diversité des traditions.
Un commun dénominateur est pourtant perceptible dans l'aménagement du territoire des Quinze : son aspiration croissante à élaborer des stratégies territoriales multisectorielles intégrées, même si la définition et l'application de ces stratégies n'est pas toujours chose aisée. Y arriver au niveau communautaire, grâce à l'élaboration et à la mise en oeuvre du S.D.E.C., pourrait représenter un apport précieux à la réalisation de l'idéal de développement tenable. Ce serait aussi mobiliser les citoyens de l'Union autour d'un authentique projet de société pour l'Europe de demain.
European Spatial Planning : A Project for Society ?
Thinking on European Community spatial planning began in Nantes in 1989. Since then, the work of the European Commission and that of the regular informal meetings of the Ministers responsible for spatial planning in the Member States have clearly proved the necessity for the European Union to provide itself with an integrated spatial planning strategy. Recent years have witnessed an interweaving of bonds of significant interdependence between the various parts of the European territory, even between regions at great distance from one another. Moreover, numerous Community policies exert a not inconsiderable influence over the spatial development of the continent. Up until now, however, their impact has barely been measured or co-ordinated over the territory. The spatial strategy of the Union will be contained in the European Spatial Development Perspective (E.S.D.P.) of which the drawing-up was decided upon at the end of 1993. A first official outline of this document should be presented to the competent ministers in June 1997 in Noordwijk in the Netherlands. The general principles (called "the Leipzig Principles") on which it will be based were adopted in 1994. In its final version, the E.S.D.P., whilst legally non-binding, will indicate various concrete implementation measures, in order that the proposed strategy actually be implemented in the Member States, in transnational co-operation and at Community level.
The willingness to work together in order to take up a series of common challenges should not hide the great diversity of the fifteen national traditions in the field of spatial planning. Indeed, the meaning given to this very term is not the same from one Member State to another. The greatly varying importance attributed to regional planning, understood as a synthesis between comprehensive physical planning and economic development strategy, is a determining factor, particularly indicative of the diversity of the traditions.
A common denominator can nevertheless be perceived in the spatial planning of the Fifteen : the increasing desire to develop integrated multisectorial planning strategies, even if the definition and the implementation of these strategies is not always an easy task. Achieving this at Community level, thanks to the drawing-up and the implementation of the E.S.D.P., could represent a valuable input into the realisation of the ideal of sustainable development. This would also serve to mobilise the citizens of the Union around a genuine project for society in the Europe of tomorrow.
