EU Commissioner Corina Cretu for Regional and Urban Policy launched a public consultation on overcoming obstacles in border regions.
For the last 25 years, the European Union has been investing in cross-border cooperation through Interreg, a financing instrument for regional development across borders. Despite all the progress made, many obstacles persist, and many of these cannot be solved with Interreg financing alone.
The main purpose of this consultation is therefore to collect experiences and opinions from citizens, key stakeholders and experts, in order to get a comprehensive overview of what obstacles persist and of their impact on the daily lives of people and businesses in border regions.
The consultation covers both internal EU border regions, as well as border regions encompassing regions in EU countries and EFTA/EEA countries. It will run from 21 September to 21 December 2015.
The results will be published online. They will also feed into a study aiming to produce conclusions and practical suggestions on how the EU and its partners can ease remaining obstacles.
More about the consultations here.