Beate Caesar

Border Futures - Zukunft Grenze - Avenir Frontière Beate Caesar

Border Futures - Zukunft Grenze - Avenir FrontièreFuture viability of cross-border cooperationWhat current discourses are relevant for border areas? What opportunities for and hindrancesto integrated territorial development are created by the specific situation ofborder regions? How can these be utilised or overcome in a targeted fashion? Thesequestions were central to the discussions of the working group "Border Futures". Borderregions like the Greater Region or the Tri-national Metropolitan Region of the UpperRhine extend far beyond the immediate area of the border. While institutional structuresof cooperation can be stabilised with agreements and organisations, there is a lack ofinstruments with which cross-border cooperation can react to changes in its parameters. Cross-border cooperation faces new challenges from increasing cross-border interactions,processes of economic structural transformation, new energy policies in the nationalspaces, and demographic change. Another factor is increasing spatial polarisation,which influences the further development and future viability of the affected border areas,involving on the one hand issues of metropolisation in urban centres and, on the otherhand, the provision of services of general interest in rural districts. Building on discussionsof the working group "Border Futures", this volume sheds light on the theme ofpractice-related cross-border cooperation with recent research relevant to planning inborder regions in the European context. The findings are intended to be applied to theborder areas in the territory of the Regional Working Group and should also contributetowards broader specialist discourse on the further development of cross-border cooperation. The issues of sustainable cross-border governance, new spatial functionalitiesand new planning instruments play a role here, as do the options provided by the currentprogramme period of EU structural policy for border areas.