The impact of the Schengen Crisis on Cross-border Cooperation

The 2016 annual meeting of the EGTC Platform will focus on the impact of the Schengen crisis in the cross-border cooperation. The closing of borders and the suspension of Schengen generates uncertainties and important costs to border cities and regions and to the structures of cooperation like the EGTCs.

The participants will look at how the migratory crisis is affecting the EGTCs, what they are doing in this respect, and which is the impact of the Schengen crisis in the day-to-day work of EGTCs and Euroregions all over Europe.

Raffaele Cattaneo, Chair of the CoR COTER Commission and coordinator of the Platform, will also explain the latest developments related to the EGTC and will present the studies 'EGTC Monitoring Report 2015' and 'The EGTCs investing'.

The European Commission will inform the EGTC Platform about the 'cross-border review'. This initiative tries to identify cross-border obstacles and solutions faced by local and regional authorities in various fields such as health, employment, land planning and others.

The Annual Meeting will end with the 2016 ceremony of the biennial award 'Building Europe across Borders' to EGTCs generating growth and jobs.

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The EGTC Platform integrates, under the coordination of the committe of the Regions, the political and technical representatives of all the existing EGTCs, EGTCs under constitution and experts. The Platform aims to facilitating the exchange of experiences on the ground, promoting the EGTC as a tool for territorial cohesion and give visibility to the EGTC projects, and supporting the consultative works of the CoR in cross-border issues.  

The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) allows public entities of different Member States to get together under a new entity with full legal personality. The EGTC was established in 2006 and was the first European cooperation structure with a legal personality defined by European Law designed to facilitate and promote territorial cooperation (cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation), in view of strengthening the economic and social cohesion of the European territory.