The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cross-border cooperation between Czechia and Austria

Abstract

Cross-border cooperation plays an important role in deepening European integration. Thanks to the existence of cross-border cooperation, border regions can overcome negative effects of the border and the adverse impact on their development, which leads to improvements in the daily lives of local residents. The Covid-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented closure of borders between most EU countries, which meant that communication between cross-border actors became more difficult and many cross-border activities were cancelled. After the first waves of the pandemic subsided, twenty interviews were conducted with mayors of Austrian municipalities in the Czech-Austrian border region. The topic of these interviews was the level of cross-border cooperation with Czech entities (municipalities, schools, societies etc.) and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cross-border cooperation. The main findings from the interviews are that cross-border cooperation is positively evaluated. More than half of the mayors see cross-border cooperation as slightly increasing in recent years and about a fifth as decreasing or not developing. The main obstacles to cross-border cooperation are bureaucracy and language barriers. There are many joint activities in the border area, some of them have a long tradition and take place every year. Due to the border closure, the organisation of these activities was first postponed and then cancelled in 2020. On a positive note, according to the mayors, most of the cross-border events were already taking place in 2021. It can be concluded, that the pandemic caused a one-year gap in cross-border activities.