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European Urban and Regional Studies http://eur.sagepub.com/ Cross-Border Regions in Europe: Significance and Drivers of Regional Cross-Border Co-Operation Markus Perkmann European Urban and Regional Studies 2003 10: 153 DOI: 10.1177/0969776403010002004 The online version of this article can be found at: http://eur.sagepub.com/content/10/2/153 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for European Urban and Regional Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://eur.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://eur.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://eur.sagepub.com/content/10/2/153.refs.html >> Version of Record - Apr 1, 2003 What is This? Downloaded from eur.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR on July 12, 2014 CROSS-BORDER REGIONS IN EUROPE SIGNIFICANCE AND DRIVERS OF REGIONAL CROSS-BORDER CO-OPERATION ★ Markus Perkmann University of Warwick, UK Abstract The 1990s have seen a strong surge in the number including their frequency, geographic distribution and of cross-border regions all over Western and development over time. It concludes by linking Eastern Europe. The article analyses the emergence cross-border regions and their various forms to of these local cross-border institutions in public institutional conditions in specific countries as well governance by addressing their context, dimensions as the effects of European regional policy. It is argued and causal underpinnings. First, it offers a brief that small-scale cross-border regions have flourished background on the history of cross-border regions in particular because of their increasingly relevant in Europe and related EU policies to support them. role as implementation units for European regional Second, it provides a conceptual definition of cross- policy in a context of multi-level governance. border regions and their various forms and positions within the wider context of other transnational KEY WORDS ★ cross-border co-operation regional networks. Third, it analyses the empirical ★ cross-border region ★ EU ★ Euroregion dimensions of European cross-border regions, ★ Interreg ★ interregional co-operation There are more than 70 cross-border regions in in which CBRs have emerged and investigates their Europe today, operating under names such as scalar implications in terms of institutional orders ‘Euroregions’, ‘Euregios’ or ‘Working and strategic capacity-building. Communities’. Although some of these initiatives Moreover, an increasing number of cross-border date back to the 1950s, the 1990s saw a large increase co-operation initiatives have been subject to case in cross-border regions (CBRs) all over Europe. In studies in the literature. Numerous authors have fact, today there are virtually no local or regional produced a wealth of work in various disciplines authorities in border areas that are not somehow such as geography, political science, international involved in cross-border co-operation (CBC) relations, administrative science and sociology. initiatives.1 The European Commission supports However, a considerable part of the literature has these initiatives with approximately €700m per year, strong normative inflections, arguing that by co- complemented by a similar amount by European operating with their cross-border counterparts, local nation states. and regional communities can emancipate These stylized facts indicate that CBRs deserve themselves vis-à-vis nation-state dominance some attention in terms of their empirical (Cappellin, 1992; Murphy, 1993; Gonin, 1994). As a significance, given the recent boom of CBC as well result, these works tend to neglect the empirical as the growing involvement of the EU authorities. analysis of actual cases and concentrate on They also seem to validate the qualitative evidence normative prescriptions. put forward under labels such as neoregionalism The more empirically focused literature makes (Balme, 1996b), the New Regionalism (Keating, useful contributions to the study of single cases 1998; MacLeod, 2001) or the Europe ‘with’ the from various disciplinary perspectives (Beck, 1997: regions (Kohler-Koch et al., 1998). On a global 118; Scott, 1998; Church and Reid, 1999; Blatter, level, Jessop (2002) illustrates various different ways 2001; Perkmann and Sum, 2002). However, the European Urban and Regional Studies 10(2): 153–171 Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications 0969-7764[200304]10:2; 153–171;034729 London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com Downloaded from eur.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR on July 12, 2014 154 EUROPEAN URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES 10(2) overall picture tends to remain opaque. As manifestations. To locate CBC activities in a wider Anderson, a long-standing scholar of borders and context of interregional co-operation, their border regions, notes, research agendas are more relationship to other types of such activities is common than precisely formulated arguments and explained. clear conclusions (Anderson, 1997). In the second main section, the concepts are This article attempts to fill a noticeable gap in related to the empirical evidence primarily through the literature by addressing three main issues. First, an analysis of the database of CBRs compiled for it aims to clarify what CBRs are exactly and how this study. This serves to determine the overall this type of international co-operation relates to patterns of European CBC, including its actual other ways of international involvement of non- incidence, geographic distribution, etc. The article central governments (NCGs) in Europe. Because of concludes with two main hypotheses on those the multi-disciplinary and therefore fragmented factors that facilitate CBC, in particular the role of nature of the literature, a variety of concepts have nation-specific institutions and EU regional policy. been put forward, making it difficult to grasp the significance of the many types of cross-border co- operation initiatives. Second, on the basis of the conceptual Introduction: cross-border regions and clarifications put forward, the article intends to shed their supranational context some light on the actual empirical significance of the CBR phenomenon in Europe as a whole. This The first ‘official’ CBR, the EUREGIO, was includes the simple, but yet unanswered questions established in 1958 on the Dutch–German border, of how many initiatives there are and what in the area of Enschede (NL) and Gronau (DE). characteristics they have. This serves to develop a Since then, such ‘Euroregions’ and other forms of macro-view on CBC which complements the micro- cross-border co-operation have developed perspectives that are dominant in the literature. throughout Europe. Today, in more than 70 Third, a few hypotheses on the determinants of cases, municipalities and regional authorities co- CBC are put forward, both in terms of the impact of operate with their counterparts across the border in nation-state-specific variables as well as the role of more or less formalized organizational EU policy-making in simultaneously promoting and arrangements. shaping CBC. For local and regional authorities, engaging in In terms of methodology, the article adopts a mix CBC means they enter a field long reserved for of quantitative analysis, primary case study research central state actors. For dealing with issues such as and secondary evidence provided by the case study local cross-border spatial planning or transport literature. I created a directory of European CBRs policy, in the 1960s and 1970s various bi-lateral and that constitutes the core of the quantitative multilateral governmental commissions were evidence, while interpretive judgement is provided established without granting access to local by my case study research over the period authorities (Aykaç, 1994). 1998–2000. A total of 42 interviews with individuals But over the last 30 years the scope for NCGs to involved both in CBC initiatives and EU regional co-operate across borders has widened considerably. policy were carried out. Additional evidence was To a large degree, this can be related to macro- gathered from secondary material as well as policy regional integration in Europe. In particular, two documents published by CBC bodies. supranational bodies, the Council of Europe2 and The arguments are presented in the following the European Union, were important for improving order. The introductory section offers an overview the conditions under which NCGs could co-operate on CBC in Europe today and its supranational across borders. Whereas the Council of Europe has context. Subsequently, a definition of CBC is been particularly active in improving the legal developed by synthesizing the main characteristics situation, the European Commission provides of CBC as provided by the evidence. From this, the substantial financial support for CBC initiatives. notion of ‘cross-border region’ is derived, with Legally, the idea of an administrative body in particular emphasis put on its various forms and charge of a subnational cross-border area is European Urban and Regional Studies 2003 10(2) Downloaded from eur.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR on July 12, 2014 PERKMANN: CROSS-BORDER REGIONS IN EUROPE 155 relatively difficult to implement. The first CBRs For the period 2000–6, Interreg III commands a were based on agreements with varying degrees of budget of €4.875b (1999 prices), corresponding to formality and mostly relied on good