Abstract
Territorial cohesion policies are a priority for the European Union. For over thirty years, they have aimed not only to provide greater social and economic development across all European space, but also to contribute to balancing g internal social and economic inequalities. On the other hand, European institutions have adopted regional scale as the optimal to achieve this broad goal. Consequently, the ability of these policies to solve the problems faced by some of these regions has been one of the most widely researched areas in numerous scientific disciplines. This article aims to assess the impact, over a fifteen-year perspective, of cooperation funds focusing on a specific area, the cross-border, and, in particular, the border area separating Spain and France. Specifically, the analyses of data from operative programmes IV and V of the INTERREG-A projects produces contradictory results. While the aim of European institutions was to use the European Territorial Cooperation instrument to achieve a greater, better real impact of funds in cross-border areas, and to progress towards territorial cohesion, the results show that, conversely, they have largely contributed to reinforcing unequal development. In the analysed border, the dynamics are an increasing distance between the more and less developed areas in the direct border space, and a privilege of urban areas, even if they are far from the borderline. A relevant conclusion of the text is that these unexpected results are partly a consequence of the design of the European programmes.
Highlights
The aim of this article is to analyse the real effects of operative programmes IV and V of the INTERREG-A projects on territorial cohesion policies, and their link with development in cross-border territories
Cooperation instrument to achieve a greater, better real impact of funds in cross-border areas, and to progress towards territorial cohesion, the results show that, they have largely contributed to reinforcing unequal development
The results obtained from the data of the Spanish–French border show that the analysis of the real impacts of cross-border cooperation policies require a multi-scalar perspective, as Kaucic and Sohn recently pointed out [57]
Summary
The aim of this article is to analyse the real effects of operative programmes IV and V of the INTERREG-A projects on territorial cohesion policies, and their link with development in cross-border territories. This is the result of the research that has been carried out since. 2012 by the APTA (Territorial and Environmental Planning and Analysis) group, which belongs to the Geography Faculty of the University of Girona, with the collaboration of researchers from a number of Spanish, French and Polish universities.
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