Preparations for the EU's post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework have brought increased interest to the functional approach as a major paradigm of the EU policies towards cross-border areas. This ...approach aims to focus cross-border programmes on territories where there is a high degree of cross-border interaction. Cross-border functional areas (CBFAs) can be a potential instrument for this, fostering further reduction of cross-border barriers and enhancing flows of people, goods, materials and knowledge. However, certain aspects of this notion are rather vague. This includes both the way how to turn the rather discursive concept of the CBFA into more material-institutional practices, and how CBFAs can be identified in practice to successfully implement the EU's cohesion policy. This paper debates the concept of the CBFA and proposes understanding CBFAs as spatially specific territorial complexes, located on two (or more) sides of a state border(s) that are not defined by administrative borders, but by cross-border functional linkages, a system of cooperative relationships and the existence of governance mechanisms. The paper proposes a novel approach for CBFA's identification based on a four-level model, taking into account the selected criteria. The proposed framework enabled to identify CBFAs and potential CBFAs at the borders of Poland.
Borders have significant potential as tourist attractions, and there are many aspects of unique border locations capable of attracting people's attention. One such attraction would be the tripoint, ...i.e. a place where the borders of three different countries meet physically at a single point. One of the newest such features in Europe - where the borders of Poland, Slovakia and Czechia meet in the Beskid Mountains - provides an example of far-reaching border-related changes in the EU, the creativity of local authorities as supported by EU funds, and the creation of a new transboundary meeting space with a strong integration-related identity. It also exemplifies the concept of a new tourist space beyond traditional tourist destinations. The development of tourism at tripoints is modelled ideographically. Spatio-temporal analysis with scalar dimensions shows the spatial relationships between tripoints and tourism development: the central point, the immediate vicinity, the proximal neighborhood (or local zone) and the regional zone. The tripoint examined here supports a proposal for a spatial planning model at tripoints in Europe.
Policy-led interventions in the tourism domain should acknowledge the particular challenges of the territories to be implemented to promote desirable impacts. When intervention areas exceed the ...national level, the indicator approach may prove effective in determining the particular needs of different areas, thus better identifying projects that could bring the most change to lagging areas. The present study tests the potential of indicators to drive spatially targeted policies by proposing and implementing a methodological framework that examines whether the activities of selected projects under the 1
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call of the Interreg-MED Thematic Objective of Sustainable Tourism effectively covered the needs of the Mediterranean regions. Furthermore, it builds regional clusters as a means to prioritize future interventions in the most suitable regions, in consideration of their particular weaknesses. The analysis revealed that interventions could have been more effectively allocated, and that more active participation of Mediterranean regions is needed. The proposed framework could serve as a starting point for enhancing the evaluation processes for project selection and lead to improvements in the policy framework for sustainable tourism.
Territorial cooperation has a long history in the UK. Numerous stakeholders in the UK have a long-standing and active engagement in the EU's Territorial Cooperation Programmes (also known as ETC and ...Interreg). Launched in 1990, Interreg is the EU's framework for territorial cooperation, enabling joint actions and policy exchanges between national, regional and local actors from different Member States. Brexit led to the decision on the part of the UK Government not to participate in EU territorial cooperation programmes after 2021, except for the PEACE Plus programme covering Northern Ireland. This article examines what will be lost because of this decision, especially in terms of what, where and what types of organisations are impacted, and what will be 'missed' in terms of the added value associated with territorial cooperation. At a time when cooperation is seen as a key lever to support efforts in addressing major economic, political, social and environmental challenges, and border relations, the article examines what, if anything, is being/can be done to fill the gaps? The article is based on documentary analysis, programme data and engagement with policy, programme and project stakeholders.
The article is dedicated to the description of the financing instrument for cross-border cooperation within the European Union, which in recent years has become an important instrument of European ...Union policy in the context of regional development, including cooperation with nonEU border regions. The article aims to analyze the INTERREG financial support instrument, analyzing the evolution of this instrument and its main objectives. The European Territorial Cooperation Instrument has significant financial and administrative resources, provides support to EU regions and economically underdeveloped third countries, ensures the development of an innovative economy and activates cooperation programs in new directions. For the research, the reports published by the European Commission, statistics and scientific articles by other authors specialized in this field were used.
Impact Assessment procedures have gained increasing attention from the European Commission (EC), as fundamental tools in providing evidence of the potential impacts of European Union (EU) financed ...projects/programmes/policies. Yet, only recently, the Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) of EU directives and Policies have gained a broader support from the EC, as a result of pivotal contributions from several ESPON projects in producing adequate TIA techniques/tools/methods (TEQUILA, Quick Check, EATIA). In the meantime, these tools are being perfected, alongside others (like the TARGET_TIA), in order to provide a more efficient and broader analysis of the evaluated project/programme/policy territorial impacts. Furthermore, there is a general agreement that TIA needs to take on account the different territorial levels (EU, national, regional, local), and should be applied in specific sector policies/programmes, which require more holistic evaluation procedures, as they have a strong territorial dimension. This is clear in the case of the Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) programmes, due to their large scope of interventions on providing territorial development of the border areas, which in the EU encompass more that 60% of its territory. In light of this, this article proposes an adaptation of the TARGET_TIA technique to assess the territorial impacts of the CBC programmes, by focusing on the evaluation of the components of the CBC programmes specific goals: barrier effect reduction and territorial capital valorisation.
In recent years, a growing number of institutional mapping approaches has reflected on border regions' development. These approaches visualise the relationship between institutional and spatial ...patterns. In parallel, the quality and quantity of cooperation-related information in the EU KEEP database (DB) is continuously increasing. The aim of our paper is two-fold. Firstly, we aim to understand the cooperation dynamics and funding geographies of the recent INTERREG A period. We do so with the example of cross-border programmes with German participation. More concretely, we scrutinise the relationships that exist between the spatial configurations of funded project cooperation, the involved thematic topics and the role of territorial contexts, particularly in terms of the degree of urbanisation and distance to a border. Secondly, we reflect on the potential and limitations of institutional mapping based on KEEP data. Specifically, we explore the explanatory capacity of institutional mappings based on KEEP data and discuss the blind spots that must be considered and how these could be addressed. The general conclusion from our paper is that institutional mapping based on the KEEP DB proves to be a strong data exploration tool with potential for comparative analyses. However, it has clear limitations with regard to causality testing.
The paper presents the first outcomes and results of using an integrated territorial tool applied by the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Hungary Cooperation Programme (2014-2020), the 'Territorial Action Plan ...for Employment', or, briefly: the TAPE. The tool is aimed at facilitating quality employment and cross-border labour mobility through the implementation of 2-7 interdependent projects within a geographically defined subregion of the programme area, with the involvement of SMEs, training institutions, NGOs and municipalities. The author introduces the tool and the nine TAPEs financed by the CBC programme and gives a comprehensive assessment of their outcomes and results from the points of view of cross-border labour market development, integrated soft planning and trust building with a special focus on the aspect of cross-border relevance. The study concludes that the tool does not meet the preliminary expectations: its cross-border relevance is not much stronger than the traditional standalone CBC projects. At the same time, the bottom-up cross-border planning exercise has significant added value which might make the tool attractive for other CBC programmes, too.
Rapid technological development in recent years means that virtual reconstructions have evolved from an illustrative complement of archaeological presentation to becoming a standard part of the ...interpretative process of archaeological data. VirtualArch has been employed to develop the use of virtual reconstructions as an innovative visualisation tool. Ten partners from eight countries have come together in an EU-funded project (Interreg Central Europe), running from 2017 to 2020. The partnership comprises regional and national archaeological institutes and heritage offices, two universities/research institutions and also two local communities. Eight pilot sites have been selected across Central Europe with three main types; urban areas, mines and underwater sites. All have one thing in common; none are publicly accessible or visible. The aim of the project has been to make all of these sites accessible and comprehensible through the use of virtual and augmented reality. This article summarises the project and its outcomes.
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