Through the b-solutions initiative, the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) and the European Commission’s DG REGIO have gathered data and knowledge on cross-border cooperation and the legal and administrative obstacles that still pose limit to the interactions between neighbouring regions within Europe.
131 different border obstacles are compiled into several publications.
These documents aim to inform stakeholders, policy makers, and other relevant actors at various levels about the daily challenges faced by citizens and local authorities in border regions. The publications also propose potential strategies and solutions to improve cross-border cooperation.
Coccau (Tarvisio, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy), 28.11.2023
THE CONCEPT OF MACRO-REGION: IT/SI/AT
The concept of macro-region is broad, originating from the need to maximise the effectiveness of actions in the territory, both in the sphere of the labour market and of the education and training systems, and with regard to the implementation and/or the capacity to improve the responses of the territory and its actors within other “spaces” of life of the citizen, linked to the attractiveness of the territories themselves and of certain areas in particular, to welfare, to “living and working” conditions in a broader sense.
The macro-region is a physical place and a living space that affects the borders of the regional territory in a different and sometimes complex way, which sees different dynamics, conditions and potentials within the areas that are part of it: FVG/Slovenia, FVG/Austria and, as far as the “so-called indirect border or maritime border” is concerned, FVG/Croatia.
It is a territory with its own peculiarities within the labour market, the economy that sustains it and the population that makes it up, also sometimes affected by ‘external’ dynamics, but with respect to which it nonetheless bears a burden. FVG has been moreover identified at European level as a region affected by a complex demographic context, due to factors such as a high rate of population ageing, abandonment of rural and mountainous areas, and which risks running into the so-called “talent development trap”. The Communication COM (2023) 32 final “Exploiting talent in the regions of Europe” of 17 January 2023 in fact identifies forty-six regions located throughout Europe that are on the one hand facing an accelerating decline in the working age population and on the other an insufficient number of people with a university degree, including FVG.
Each area, therefore, has its own peculiarities, which as such need to be addressed and managed, while maintaining an overall vision capable of enhancing their potential and maximising their effectiveness, in their functioning and tools, also as risk management and integrated response capabilities.
Therefore, in truth, these peculiarities become opportunities for territorial growth, for meeting the territory’s needs, and for alignment with common priorities in instruments and policies.
