Abstract
This study presents a diagnostic analysis of the concept of the Eurocity. It aims to compare the initial intentions of the concept with its actual results from the perspective of a sustainable local development approach, particularly assessing the attention given to local governance and its potential for boosting this development paradigm. To this end, a range of internal documents and press reports of the Guadiana Eurocity were analyzed, and 15 in-depth interviews and one focus group were conducted with the main stakeholders involved in implementing local development policy in order to uncover the cognitive structure of their collective discourse and the potentials and expectations of the Eurocity. The results showed that the Guadiana Eurocity seemed to be the cross-border and European integration entity with the most legitimacy among these municipalities for carrying out sustainable local development strategies. Its structure and closeness to residents’ daily lives, however, were not sufficient guarantees of its success.
Highlights
We are currently experiencing a paradoxical era when globalizing tendencies are driving institutions at all territorial levels to join in a race for positioning on the world stage [1]
These institutional instances take a variety of forms, such as the working communities, the Euroregions set up by the Council of Europe, and, more recently, the European Groupings for Territorial Cooperation (EGTCs), which were created by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe in 2006 in order to enhance the executive power of these organisms and to facilitate cross-border cooperation between regional and local governments
The results offer a diagnosis of the Eurocity as a sustainable local development project and as a model for local cross-border governance in a context of complementarity and/or juxtaposition of regional, local and cross-border institutions
Summary
We are currently experiencing a paradoxical era when globalizing tendencies are driving institutions at all territorial levels to join in a race for positioning on the world stage [1]. Living together along the longest, and longest-lasting, of European borders, there are a wide variety of entities and institutional networks in the various cross-border regions or NUTS II (Galicia–North Portugal, North Portugal–Castilla y León, Centro–Castilla y León, Alentejo Centro–Extremadura, Alentejo–Algarve–Andalucía), ranging from working communities, Euroregions and other entities created by the European Council to institutional networks such as the Eixo Atlantico do Noroeste Peninsular (Atlantic Axis of the Northwest Iberian Peninsula) and the RIET (Iberian network of trans-frontier entities) In this area of abundant fusion, Eurocities have appeared to arise as the best spokespeople for local interests, for local residents who really live around and experience the border in their daily lives. We provide a diagnostic analysis of the Guadiana Eurocity EGTC as a sustainable local development project through a content analysis of a range of documentary sources and the discourses gathered from a total of 14 interviews and one focus group conducted with specialists and experts working in the Eurocity
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