Euregions as “borderscape”: stable cross-border regionalism or instable elite phenomenon? Martin Klatt, PhD. Associate Professor Centre of Border Region Studies Sønderborg mk@sam.sdu.dk

Border regions as laboratories for European integration ”State of the art”: A story of continuing integration in the form of cross-border regions Institutionalization as European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation Territorial approach (Scott, Perkmann, Paasi …) Create cross-border regions, territories Political motives dominate ”peace building” Europe of the people Bottom-up Europeanization

Europe of (Cross-Border) Regions? Keating: regionalization of power is not the aim of EU Regional Policies, nor in the interest of nation states* Schmitt-Egner: Transnational Regionalism – regions develop cross-border action space Multi-level governance: Regions and Cross-border Regions have become important players in the EU’s system of multilevel governance M. Keating: (2008) A Quarter Century of the Europe of Regions, Regional and Federal Studies 18 (5), 629-635

A new borderscape? ”borderscape”: landscape and border De- (and re-) borderings have created new borderscapes in Europe Visual: Schengen borders – but also fences….

A Europe of Cross-Border Regions (CBRs)? Source: Association of European Border Regions

Sønderjylland-Schleswig – from territorial to functional? Region Sønderjylland-Schleswig was founded as a euroregion in 1997 Historic reference to the Duchy of Schleswig Territorial reference

Governance Restructured in 2011 Infocenter Facilitator for cross-border projects No clear political function Singular – or representative?

Framework of German-Danish coop. South-Western Baltic Sea Transregional Area Implementig New Geography (STRING) Fehmarn Belt Region Pushed by infrastructure project Cooperation Schleswig-Holstein – Region South Denmark Border Triangle Region Sønderjylland-Schleswig Interreg Germany-Denmark

Best practices: cooperation by bottleneck? Ambulances: use decreased after establishing Danish facitilies Rescue helicopter: the same Cancer treatment: stops January 2017 after establishing Danish facilities New topic: vocational training (Denmark lacks facilities)

Multiple network structures? Upper Rhine Region La Grande Région? Pacific North West French-Spanish border Øresund Region (now Greater Copenhagen Skåne Region)

Elite structures Social network structures reveal cbc-clusters The same does Interreg evaluation Functional integration is lacking – except certain cross-border transport infrastructures (Øresund bridge, Basel Regio S-Bahn) Cross-border business activities operate mostly outside political cooperation frameworks, market induced

Challenges

Re-bordering? National agendas demonstrate the helplessness of (cross-) border regions: Denmark: against the Swedish controls in the Øresund Region Schleswig-Holstein: against the Danish controls on the Danish-German border Bavaria: against stopping the border controls on the German-Austrian border Austria: preparing for border controls at the Austrian-Italian border And the people: vast majority usually supports border controls

New borderscapes? Cross-border interaction has increased since Schengen But: Fx Danish-German: cross-border traffic is still marginal in relation to domestic interaction (Gutachten Mobilität der Zukunft in Schleswig-Holstein, Rambøll September 2016) Lack of awareness of euroregional activities Interreg may as well reproduce borders Luxemburg, Basel and Geneva Regions are not representative: metropolitan – hinterland regions rather than border regions

Challenges Methodology! Benchmarking? Measuring integration? Explaining power relations in multi-level governance