"Promoting cross-border cooperation and ensuring the full participation of regions in European policies are objectives shared by the Congress and the Association of European Border Regions", said Congress Vice-President Gunn Marit Helgesen at the annual conference of the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) on "The future of Europe from the point of view of border regions" held online on 5 November 2020. On this occasion, she congratulated "Karl Heinz Lambertz, who is also Vice-President of the Congress, on his election as President of AEBR, which will serve to enhance the cooperation" between the two institutions.
"Cross-border cooperation does not only allow a better understanding of neighbourly relations, but also to deal with common problems, to develop synergies and to seize economic benefits from sharing public services and infrastructure", said Gunn Marit Helgesen.
In the context of the Covid-19 crisis, however, the Vice-President of the Congress regretted that the regions had been overlooked in the government decision-making process. "The disruptive effects of the crisis were particularly felt in cross-border regions due to restrictive measures such as border closures. These measures have often been decided by national governments ignoring or underestimating the voice of the regions," she said, recalling that solidarity and cooperation between regions, including across borders, have often led to effective measures.
"At the Congress, we are convinced that decentralised cross-border cooperation is necessary for the territorial development of Europe and that the future of border regions lies in the construction and strengthening of integrated cross-border communities," emphasised the vice-president. The Congress has already recommended that the existing legal framework for cross-border cooperation be further developed to include provisions on horizontal subsidiarity and the transfer of competences and resources to cross-border cooperation bodies.
"The examples of good practice of cooperation between EU regions such as Eurodistricts, Euroregions and the 72 existing European territorial cooperation groupings should be extended to the whole continent and even beyond Europe. There is a legal framework for this, the Council of Europe's 1980 Madrid Convention on Transfrontier Cooperation and its three additional protocols," Ms Helgesen stressed.
"We certainely have the legal arsenal to promote cross-border cooperation, but we need greater political will to achieve it", concluded the Vice-President, welcoming the commitment of AEBR in this direction.
Statement by the Vice-president of the Congress at the annual conference of the AEBR
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