Juliette Garcia and Guillaume Rey (M2 PEA)

Cooperation between regions constitutes an essential dimension of “community added value”. Significant resources are allocated for this by the European Union. A series of financing instruments and how-to-do exchanges are provided to regional actors, who are responsible for these initiatives.
In the framework of the regional policy, four Community Initiative Programmes (CIP) have been developed, including the Interreg initiative which aims at strengthening economic and social cohesion by promoting cross-border, transnational and interregional co-operation.
Launched in 1990 and sustained by ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), the community initiative for cooperation Interreg is the main instrument. The Interreg III objective (2000-2006) is to reinforce economic and social cohesion, promoting cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation, and balanced development of the European Union’s territory. A particular attention is given to ultra-peripheral regions and to regions situated on external borders of the Union with candidate countries.
The total budget is 4,875 million Euro for the period 2000-2006 divided into three strands:

1. Strand A: cross-border cooperation promoting integrated regional development between neighbouring border regions, including external borders and certain maritime borders.
2. Strand B: transnational cooperation aiming at promoting a higher degree of integration across large groupings of European regions, with thematic programmes concerning coherent regions, such as the Baltic Sea or the Western Mediterranean.
3. Strand C: interregional cooperation throughout the territory of the Union (and neighbouring countries), divided into four large areas (North, South, East, and West), to improve regional development and cohesion. 

Strand A shall be allocated between 50 and 80 % of this total, strand B between 14% and 44% and strand C will be allocated 6% of the total (fixed). The breakdown between strands will depend on decisions by the Member States.
A series of principles govern the implementation of Interreg III: A wide partnership between different administrative levels with socio-economic actors and relevant actors following a “bottom-up” approach; Complementarity with the “mainstream programmes” of the Structural Funds; Follow a more integrated approach to the implementation of the community initiatives; Effective co-ordination between Interreg III and external European Union policy instruments, especially with a view to enlargement: PHARE, TACIS, MEDA, EDF, ISPA, SAPARD and CARDS.
In the frame of Interreg III B, transnational cooperation is not only for EU countries. Neighbouring countries can also benefit from cohesion programmes. These countries are for example Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Byelorussia, Algeria or Libya… So the objective of the Interreg programme is to strengthen cohesion between European countries and regions, but also between Europe and neighbouring countries and regions, like Northern Africa or Russia.
National and regional or local authorities in the Member States and the third countries are responsible for the initiative nationally/regionally. In the European Commission the directorate general for regional policy is responsible for this initiative, financed under the ERDF. But the main role belongs to local authorities.

This cooperation programme is managed by local authorities, thus this kind of programme is strengthening the capacity of European regions to develop policies and projects of their own. They are becoming the direct interlocutors and the main actors of European Union policies. They can play a bigger role, and circumvent the State level. Therefore Interreg is contributing to creating a real “Europe of regions”.
Regional policy can be seen as a way of winning more autonomy and initiative power. For instance, Catalonia, which historically is tending to emancipate itself from the Spanish State, is very efficient in European programmes. Barcelona is recognized as one of the most active regions in the implementation of this kind of decentralized programmes.
Moreover, Interreg provides for the “Europeanization” of the different regions of Europe, by letting them work together, and directly with the European institutions, providing a unification of working practices. Interreg is encouraging experience and good practices exchanges, especially in Strand C which develops cooperation between regions which may be very far away geographically, even if they have no specific border or historical links with the foreign region they are working with. They just have to share the same issues, and seek solutions together to common problems.

Following the success of Interreg III, the European Commission decided to create a new objective: “European territorial cooperation”, as part of Structural Funds for 2007-2013 programming. It is the third objective, so this kind of regional cooperation is nowadays becoming one of the three main priorities of the EU, besides the objectives of convergence and competitiveness/employment. Therefore, European cooperation is now recognized as a major tool in the building of Europe.