Cross-Border Cooperation and Territorial Impact Assessment in the EU

Eduardo Medeiros

 

Abstract

Border regions in the European Union (EU) account for roughly 40% of the total population and 60% of the EU territory (border NUTS3). These regions have had a specific financial support from the EU Structural Funds, since 1989, firstly through the INTERREG-A Community Initiative (1989-2006), and more recently through the Territorial Cooperation Objective (2007-2013), in order to help them overcome the disadvantages created by national administrative boundaries in a context of the Single Market emergence. Despite representing less than 3% of the EU Structural Funds total allocation, from 1989 to 2013 more than 15 billion € were used in cross-border cooperation (CBC) projects, in all areas of territorial development. Therefore, the use of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) procedures is largely justified in assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of such programmes, namely in reducing the barrier effect produced by the presence of the borderline, and also in valorising the territorial capital of the border areas. In this light, this paper proposes and applies a cross-border cooperation TIA evaluation matrix, with appropriate dimensions and components, which could be adapted to the TARGET_TIA tool, with the ultimate goal of assessing the territorial impacts of cross-border programmes.

 

Eduardo Medeiros, Centro de Estudos Geográficos (CEG) – Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT) – Edifício da Faculdade de Letras – Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 Lisbon University, Portugal, emedeiros@campus.ul.pt

Medeiros, E. (2014) „Cross-Border Cooperation and Territorial Impact Assessment in the EU“. Evaluační teorie a praxe 2(2): 23-38