Abstract
Cross-border regions are the laboratories of European integration. Daily interactions across European borders let citizens experience the benefits of the European Union (EU) internal market. Still, many border barriers continue to prevent individuals and organisations from exploiting the full-potential of European border regions and the benefits of a more integrated European territory. Amongst these barriers are the absence or inappropriate supply of cross-border public transport services. In this context, this paper presents potential policy tools to increase border permeability related to cross-border public transport as well as practical results from a few case-studies implemented across Europe.
Highlights
The history of Europe is closely linked with the constant formation and rearrangement of national administrative boundaries (AEBR, 2012), commonly referred to as borders (Lunden, 2018)
Just like what happens with the language barrier, the lack or the inappro priate presence of cross-border transport services becomes centrally important when considered in a broader context since they can prevent the use of cross-border public services, and the options for desired crossborder commuting flows
Mutual competence for a common topic represents one of the most important challenges of using an European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) as a central platform to manage cross-border transport projects. This comes from that fact that an EGTC generally has the choice between two strategies when it is created: (i) concentration on one or few clearly defined mis sions and choice of its members according to the competences needed for this/those missions; (ii) definition of a wide panel of topics in order to respond to the very different needs of daily cross-border life as the Eurodistrict S-O did
Summary
The history of Europe is closely linked with the constant formation and rearrangement of national administrative boundaries (AEBR, 2012), commonly referred to as borders (Lunden, 2018). Just like what happens with the language barrier, the lack or the inappro priate presence of cross-border transport services becomes centrally important when considered in a broader context since they can prevent the use of cross-border public services, and the options for desired crossborder commuting flows This is worrying in Europe, as 30% of the EU population dwell in border regions “and for many of them, the natural catchment area for everyday life activities reaches across national borders” (EC, 2019: 8). This paper will answer the following research questions: (i) What are the main policy challenges to mitigate the lack of or existence of inappropriate cross-border public transport systems affecting the daily lives of European citizens? Methodological standpoint, the analysis is based on a collection of ongoing illustrative case-studies presented at an EU Conference by several experts and practitioners, complemented with literature on cross-border transport services and infrastructure
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