German

Widespread cross-border activities and relations have moved European integration step by step from what was once the European periphery towards the centre. This Working Paper spotlights the SaarLorLux region and describes cross-border cooperation at grass-roots level, as realized in specific activities in 2024. Relevant data is derived from quantitative surveys at the communal (urban and rural district) level in Saarland, the département Moselle, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, complemented by in-depth interviews with representatives of these bodies. The results show that decision makers at this level associate Europe closely with open borders, the common currency, and solidarity, and hence widely agree with the thesis that border regions are – despite all obstacles – laboratories of European integration. The sense of a joint borderland and of connection with Europe is correspondingly high, especially in districts directly on the border. The advantages of the border situation are real and present to those who live here, but the Covid pandemic has nevertheless left traces that have not yet been entirely erased. In this light, future cross-border cooperation calls for further positive input at the local level to fill the concept of Europe with life.

Abstract -  With 130,000 workers commuting across the Franco-Luxembourg border daily and national policies to transform former steel wastelands into new urban neighbourhoods - Belval in Luxembourg and Micheville in Lorraine - the Franco-Luxembourg border is one of the most functionally integrated borders in the European Union. This functional specialisation of the Greater Region (GR) area - economic activities on one side, residential areas on the other - poses a significant challenge for planning policy (SDTGR, 2020: 12).

This policy paper, which is the result of a study carried out in the context of the European Capital of Culture Esch2022 (2021-2022), shows that while functional attachment to place is the basis of attachment in the cross-border area of Alzette Belval, emotional attachment is also an important democratic resource. A sign of personal projection and a symbolic relationship with the place, its identity and its values, emotional attachment indicates a willingness to stand up for the place, to enhance it and to protect it. This policy paper, based on a field study of 60 local residents, develops a typology of five dynamics of attachment to place and encourages a rethinking of relationships with the Alzette Belval area, which are often categorised as nostalgic or opportunistic. It analyses the relationships between attachment to place, citizen participation and equitable planning, i.e. planning that aims to take greater account of and involve the local population.

The policy paper concludes with some recommendations for local and cross-border policy actors:

• Differences in cross-border development lead to a negative image of the region both inside and outside the Alzette Belval cross-border territory. They affect the sense of place and therefore represent a common challenge for the image of the cross-border territory, local commitment and coexistence.
• For a large part of the new inhabitants, the functional attachment is the basis of their attachment. Threatened by inflation and housing shortages on the Luxembourg side and by inadequate infrastructure on the Lorraine side, it is in the common interest to strengthen it in order to (1) maintain the attractiveness of the area, (2) prevent a further increase in socio-spatial disparities and (3) provide opportunities for the development of emotional attachment.
• The local values of hospitality, solidarity, conviviality and work culture, which have emerged from the region's industrial history and are shared on both sides of the border, strengthen social cohesion. The further promotion of these values through social institutions, cultural, club and sporting events and in public spaces helps to strengthen emotional attachment. This can increase participation and civic engagement and build bridges between new and long-standing residents.

Depending on location, European border regions can look back on several decades of development in their histories of cooperation. For the Franco-German region this stretches back to the post-World War 2 reconciliation between the two countries, for the German-Polish borderlands to the raising of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany in 1990. It is, however, easy to forget how fragile cross-border relations can still be: something the Covid pandemic, with its limping crisis management, brought powerfully home in the months of and after spring 2020. Poor cross-border communications and inadequate foresight as to their effects exacerbated the problems – old as well as new – caused by re-erecting long disused checkpoints and closing borders. In the present time of polycrisis it is more than ever important to review the Covid era and to analyze the nature and timescale of resilience in cross-border cooperation.

In a project based on empirical surveys and funded by the German-Polish Science Foundation, the four authors of the present policy paper outline a number of development perspectives for the Franco-German and German-Polish borderlands. Differentiating among resilience factors according to their capacity for resistance, adaptation, and transformation, practical recommendations are given for the enhancement of crisis management in both regions. The recommendations cover four areas:

• Communication between decision-makers must be improved and widened at all levels – vertical, horizontal, and diagonal – taking account of varying structures and responsibilities in the face of specific borderland challenges. Informal as well as formal communications are of central importance, not only in times of crisis but permanently. Suitable provision should also be made for cross-border residents.
• Of central importance is the growth of responsible cooperation on the basis of familiarity and trust, political will and mutual transparency. Borderland-specific measures can play a major role here, as does the reinforcement of intercultural competence.
• Key players and structures should be familiar to people across all levels of action: this can provide a basis for common cross-border growth. Suitable measures for improving knowledge transfer, disseminating good practice, and developing scenarios for response to future crises include the exchange of personnel and regular practice sessions. Apart from crises, such measures foster relations on an everyday level. All of this presumes the existence of adequate funding for border regions.
• The EU perspective on borderlands as ‘living laboratories of European integration’ requires that their potential for the development of the EU be taken seriously and vitally enacted. The opportunities offered by a Europe of open frontiers should be actively publicized – also as a means to anticipate and counter any feelings of cultural or national resentment. 

Despite the increased discourse on the complexity of borders, there are hardly any references in the academic debate as to what exactly complex borders mean or complexity-oriented border research. This paper starts here and discusses the promising relationship between complexity thinking and border research. To this end, it explains what is currently qualified as complex in border research and what understanding of complexity can be found there. The core ideas of complexity thinking are then presented and linked to the ordering and ordered principle of the border. Building on this, border research approaches and methodologies are identified that can be considered enablers of the complexity perspective and, thus, as starting points for complexity-oriented border research.