''Effective cross-border cooperation is a key to European integration, it goes to the heart of the European project,'' stated Gudrun Mosler-Törnström (Austria, SOC), President of the Congress Chamber of Regions, addressing the Conference on ''The role of Cross-Border Cooperation in Europe'', on 13 November 2015, in Brussels. ''We need a seismic shift in political will to ensure that the resources are found and that the actors at all levels of government are mobilised to get practical results,'' she said. ''But our most pressing problem is the current refugee crisis, which threatens to paralyse our efforts. In my own region in Salzburg, we are seeing national boundaries being reinforced, making transfrontier cooperation more difficult,'' she underlined. Mrs Mosler insisted on the benefits of cross-border cooperation ''not just in terms of improving neighbourly relations, but to improve public services, sharing infrastructure, schools, universities, hospitals, emergency services and airports''.
