EU regions' concerns for the current Schengen crisis were at the heart of the annual meeting of the European Groupings for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), held at the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on 20 April.
"Cross-border cooperation is not automatic, in particular when the borders are shaken by the refugee crisis and by unilateral suspensions of the Schengen agreement because of security concerns" said Raffaele Cattaneo (IT/EPP), Chair of COTER and coordinator of the EGTC Platform of the CoR, who talked about "the costs of non-Schengen".
Concerning cities and regions in the external borders, Manolis Vournous, Mayor of Chios (Greece), underlined the importance of taking into account the situation of cities and regions of external borders. In particular, Chios is a hotspot of the refugee crisis and its municipality is integrated in the EGTC Amphictyony. Mr Vournous and Vassilis Xenos, Director of Amphictyony, invited a delegation of CoR Members to visit the refugee hotspots in the Aegean islands.
The situation at the EU-Ukraine border was highlighted by the EGTC Tisza, the first one involving a non-EU Member State. The co-presidents of this grouping, Oszkar Seszták (HU/EPP) and Mikhailo Rivis, President of the Council of the Region of Zakarpattya, explained how this border is subject to visas and to which extent the stability of the cooperation is important.
"For cooperation initiatives such as macro-regional strategies and the EGTCs, the re-introduction of border controls would be not only an unacceptable political contradiction, but also a huge operational obstacle, especially when it comes to setting up joint services for cross-border communities in areas as health, education, transport, environmental and civil protection, tourism. The short sightedness of some national governments risk jeopardising investments, tax payers money, and years of joint work on shared objectives" said CoR First Vice-President, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, (BE/PSE), during the EGTC debate. This point was shared by representatives of the European Commission as well as of local and regional authorities from all across Europe.
Anne Sander (EPP/FR), Member of the European Parliament, shared these concerns but justified the closing of borders on the basis of the terrorist attacks and the flows of refugees. Ms Sander leads the intergroup on cross-border cooperation of the European Parliament, where the impact of the border controls has been quantified in 47 billion € each year. Ms Sander pointed out direct impacts such as the cross-border commuters and other non-quantifiable impacts like uncertainties for future business investments.
A crucial moment for the future of cross-border cooperation
During the meeting, Iskra Mihaylova (BG/ELDR) presented her draft report on cross-border cooperation recently adopted by the Committee of Regional Development the European Parliament.
The European Commission presented the cross-border review. The Directorate General of Regional and Urban Policy intends to identify the obstacles to cross-border cooperation, from the legal and administrative point of view. The Commission is studying more than 600 replies to the survey launched last year, the conclusion of focus groups and 16 selected case studies, and will adopt a document in the first quarter of 2017.
EU investment on territorial cooperation is worth more than €10bn over the years 2014-2020, supporting more than 100 cooperation programmes between regions and territorial, social and economic partners. The CoR is actively promoting territorial cooperation across the EU, providing specific support, monitoring and guidance through its EGTC platform.
More information:
Annual meeting of the EGTC Platform
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egtc@cor.europa.eu
