With the introduction of EU Cohesion Policy as well as the dismantling of the (material) borders between EU member states, the field of cross-border cooperation progressively shifted from a national to a regional and local level.
The France Strategy, presented by the government of the Saarland in 2014, exemplifies these developments and self-conception of regional and local actors. On the one hand, the long-term experiences of districts and municipalities in the Saarland, as well as of the départements and communes in Lorraine (part of Grand Est) are understood as the foundation for the conception of the France Strategy. On the other, they represent vital links between the broad range of actors and civil society, whose participation is indispensable for the success of the Strategy.
Despite their central role, our knowledge on the contributions, experiences and recommendations of local and regional actors with regard to cross-border cooperation is limited. Their knowledge and expertise often remain implicit and are therefore not considered – or not considered sufficiently – in the coordination and implementation of cross-border strategies in general, and the France Strategy in particular.
This research project – funded by the State Chancellery of the Saarland – named “Saar-Moselle as a German-French multilingual space: Potentials and challenges from a predominantly local perspective” (2020-2022) seeks to address this challenge, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to document local expertise, with the overarching aim of contributing to the further coordination and implementation of the Strategy. The principal investigator of the project is Jun.-Prof. Dr. habil. Florian Weber; Nora Crossey M.A. is in charge of the project coordination.
The research project is funded by the State Chancellery of the Saarland (Staatskanzlei).
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