Regional Development – Sustainability

Policy Paper Vol. 6

Visuel
Cover Policy Paper 6
Abstract

Les 130.000 frontalier.es qui traversent la frontière franco-luxembourgeoise au quotidien et les opérations nationales de reconversion d’ancienne friches sidérurgiques en nouveau quartier – Belval au Luxembourg et Micheville en Lorraine – font de la frontière franco-luxembourgeoise l’une des plus fonctionnellement intégrée dans l’Union Européenne. La spécialisation fonctionnelle du territoire de la Grande Région (GR) – activités économiques d’un côté, résidentielles de l’autre – est identifiée comme un enjeu majeur pour les politiques de l’aménagement (SDTGR, 2020 : 12).

Résultat d’une recherche menée dans le cadre de la Capitale européenne de la Culture Esch2022 (2021-2022), ce policy paper démontre que si l’attachement fonctionnel au lieu est le socle de l’attachement dans l’espace transfrontalier Alzette Belval, l’attachement émotionnel constitue une ressource démocratique majeure. Symptôme d’une projection personnelle et d’une relation symbolique avec le lieu, son identité et ses valeurs, l’attachement émotionnel indique une propension à s’y engager, le mettre en valeur, le protéger. En présentant une typologie de cinq dynamiques d’attachement au lieu, ce policy paper issu d’une enquête de terrain auprès de 60 résident.es invite à reconsidérer les relations au territoire Alzette Belval souvent catégorisées comme nostalgiques ou opportunistes. Il explore les relations qu’entretiennent attachement au lieu, participation citoyenne et aménagement plus juste, c’est-à-dire mieux à même de prendre en compte et d’associer les résident.es.

Il conclut avec des recommandations à destination des acteurs des politiques publiques locales et transfrontalières.

  • Les disparités de développement transfrontalier véhiculent une image détériorée de la région à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur de l’espace transfrontalier Alzette Belval. Elles entravent l’attachement au lieu et constituent à ce titre un enjeu partagé pour l’attractivité de l’espace transfrontalier, l’engagement local et le vivre ensemble.
  • Pour une large partie de la population nouvellement résidente, l’attachement fonctionnel est le socle fondateur de l’attachement. Menacé par l’inflation et la crise du logement côté luxembourgeois et par des infrastructures inadaptées côté lorrain, il est d’intérêt partagé de le consolider afin de 1) continuer à attirer, 2) éviter de creuser des disparités socio-spatiales, 3) permettre à un attachement émotionnel de s’épanouir.
  • Issues de la culture industrielle de la région, les valeurs locales partagées de part et d’autre de la frontière que sont l’hospitalité, la solidarité, la convivialité et la culture du travail sont forces de cohésion sociale. Continuer de les promouvoir à travers les lieux de sociabilité, évènements culturels, associatifs, sportifs et dans l’espace public contribue à encourager l’attachement émotionnel. Ce sont des leviers de participation et d’engagement citoyen ; de ponts entre nouveaux arrivant.es et résident.es de longue date.

UniGR-CBS Working Paper Vol. 17

Visuel
Working Paper Vol. 17
Abstract

In the 21st century, cooperative cross-border projects in many peripheral areas of EU member states have steadily gained in importance; but, as the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated, they can by no means be taken for granted. Borderland cooperation involves many actors, and complex as well as varied background conditions. Funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (project key 01UC2104), the network project ‘Linking Borderlands: Dynamics of Cross-Border Peripheries’ undertakes a comparative analysis of two borderland regions, one in south-western, one in eastern Germany: the so-called Greater Region on the borders of Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg, and the Brandenburg-Lubuskie Region straddling the German-Polish border. The Working Paper outlines the background to EU borderland cooperation and sketches some central lines of development taken by border studies, before presenting its five constituent perspectives.

Miniature
Summary

The Moselle Valley is one of the great river landscapes of Western Europe, with a unique natural and cultural heritage. The part of the valley that lies on the border between France, Luxembourg and Germany reflects the diversity of the Greater Region through its history and international links. For some years now, the Upper Moselle Valley has been facing the challenge of reconciling the current development dynamics with the preservation of its rural landscape.

In order to meet this challenge and to strengthen the functional cross-border connections between Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, the ministries responsible for regional planning have developed the Upper Moselle Valley development concept in cooperation with regional and municipal actors on the basis of the guiding principles defined in the EOM concept.

Miniature
Summary

Lille, Strasbourg and Basel are powerful cities situated close to national borders.  Fuelled by economic, political and symbolic functions, their influence creates regions that are both metropolitan and cross-border. Thanks to interviews, cartographic work and textual analyses, this thesis looks at how cross-border metropolitan regions are constructed. This emerges as a process whereby the local actors have to mobilise together and with the European Union to negotiate with the States. This European scale recomposition generates areas subject to tensions where the cross-border conurbation is also part of other, larger regions.

Miniature
Summary

The symbolic role of national borders for cross-border regionalisation remains little-known. In order to broaden our understanding of the meaning-making capacity of borders, this paper looks at what happens when the border is apparently not the object of a symbolisation strategy. The case of Greater Geneva appears particularly informative as this cross-border cooperation seeks to develop an integrated urban agglomeration marked by the ‘erasure’ of the Franco-Swiss border. Rather than an absence of symbolisation, the border is recoded as a ‘planned obsolescence’ through its ‘invisibilization’ in the Genevan borderscape. However, the dissonance between this recoding by cross-border cooperation elites and existing popular imaginations weakens the cooperation project. To the extent that borders are powerful symbols which are intended to stimulate emotions and empathy, the ability to mobilize their meaning-making capacity is at the heart of symbolisation politics, as much for the proponents of open borders and cross-border cooperation as for the reactionary forces that emphasize national interests and ontological insecurity.

Miniature
Summary

In view of the multiple possible interpretations emerging in the public debate, the eminently cross-cutting but also sensitive nature of the topic covered, the publication endeavours first of all to explain the reasons why it would be a good idea to adopt a co-development policy. It attempts to define the objectives it should seek to achieve, the actors that might be involved as well as the possible content through a number of concrete proposals for implementation.

Miniature
Summary

In essence, the report concludes there are two different ways: the first is to give Limburg (or Dutch border provinces in general) a specific role in the application of existing multi- or bilateral instruments at the Benelux or EU level. This could include a vital role related to the EU instrument under debate (cross-border mechanism).

The second option would be the establishment of a specific national legal instrument that would provide the Province of Limburg (or all border provinces) with innovative tools to adapt Dutch legislation in the context of border obstacles.

Miniature
Summary

This article proposes a systematic analysis of the Interreg IV A projects related to cross-border territorial development which were conducted along Europe's internal borders between 2007 and 2013. It reveals the diversity of the initiatives and shows that they can be separated into different categories according to whether they aim to (1) create or improve networks between actors, (2) produce territorial observations, (3) develop strategies or, finally, (4) produce tangible for the public at cross-border level.

Miniature
Summary

Cross-border working is a phenomenon that has concerned a growing number of people in Europe since the beginning of the 2000s. Lorraine, which constitutes a large labour pool and until the recent territorial reform was the only French region with borders with three countries, is concerned by large-scale flows into Luxembourg and to a lesser extent into Germany, and therefore represents a pertinent area to study to identify the geographical and economic dimensions of cross-border working. Cross-border working is analysed as a factor in regulating the job market through its heterogeneity, but also the legal standardisation of the status of the cross-border worker.

Thematic issue Borders in Perspective Vol. 7

Visuel
Thematic issue Vol. 7
Abstract

In border areas, there is a special need for cross-border coordination between the stakeholders of spatial development and spatial planning with regard to spatially relevant challenges and future oriented development processes. The process of creating and implementing cross-border spatial development concepts requires intensive communication and cooperation across borders. However, these can make an important contribution to a coordinated cross-border spatial development and thus bundle resources as well as efficiently direct them to coordinated measures and projects. In addition to this added value of cross-border cooperation, however, there are also numerous points of friction and obstacles, which are caused, among other things, by different planning traditions and cultures, administrative systems and responsibilities, or also concern a lack of knowledge about planning instruments in the cross-border context. In cross-border spatial planning and development practice, these obstacles and the existing spatial challenges can also be countered by sub-spatial or subject-specific cooperation institutionalized and organized at different spatial levels. In this thematic issue, strategies and concepts from cross-border spatial development are presented and highlighted, which deal with different topics of spatial development, reflect a spectrum of cross-border forms of cooperation and organization and discuss the added value.