Identifying cross-border functional areas: conceptual background and empirical findings from Polish borderlands

ABSTRACT

Preparations for the EU’s post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework have brought increased interest to the functional approach as a major paradigm of the EU policies towards cross-border areas. This approach aims to focus cross-border programmes on territories where there is a high degree of cross-border interaction. Cross-border functional areas (CBFAs) can be a potential instrument for this, fostering further reduction of cross-border barriers and enhancing flows of people, goods, materials and knowledge. However, certain aspects of this notion are rather vague. This includes both the way how to turn the rather discursive concept of the CBFA into more material-institutional practices, and how CBFAs can be identified in practice to successfully implement the EU’s cohesion policy. This paper debates the concept of the CBFA and proposes understanding CBFAs as spatially specific territorial complexes, located on two (or more) sides of a state border(s) that are not defined by administrative borders, but by cross-border functional linkages, a system of cooperative relationships and the existence of governance mechanisms. The paper proposes a novel approach for CBFA’s identification based on a four-level model, taking into account the selected criteria. The proposed framework enabled to identify CBFAs and potential CBFAs at the borders of Poland.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-border functional areas
• cross-border cooperation
• cohesion policy
• European Territorial Cooperation
• interreg

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Rafael Agostinho from keep.eu for his help in obtaining the data, Krzysztof Łoboda from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University for his support with the preparation of maps and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Later European Territorial Cooperation and the European Neighbourhood Instrument.

2 According to an amendment to the Act on Spatial Planning and Development, since 2020, Poland’s Spatial Development Concept 2030 is no longer in place.

3 The following thematic partnership groups have been identified: agriculture, environmental protection, economy and labor market, maritime areas and inland waters, society, security, tourism and heritage protection, municipal economy, institutional cooperation, green economy, transport and mobility, innovativeness, research and development, and regional and local development.

4 We assume the following average speeds: motorways – 110 km/h, primary roads – 65 km/h, secondary roads – 55 km/h, other roads – 40 km/h. The distance threshold between partners was determined based on the average theoretical speed in cross-border areas, calculated according to the following formula: $D=2\left(v_m\cdot l_m+v_p\cdot l_p+v_s\cdot l_s+v_o\cdot l_o\right)$ where v is the average speed in each road category, while l is the share of roads of a given category in the total length of roads in the analyzed area. The data on road length were derived from (OpenStreetMap 2020). The result is the average distance that can be reached in the analyzed area in 120 min of travel by car.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre Poland under Grant 2018/02/X/HS4/01728 and Gdynia Maritime University under Grant WPiT/2019/PZ/09.