Cross-Border Regions: The Gap Between the Elite's Projects and People's Awareness. Reflections from the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion

Abstract

In the last 20 years, numerous cross-border regions have been launched across Europe. Many studies have been carried out dealing with the analysis of regional building processes. Most of them focus on the work developed by local elites profiting from economic, political and institutional factors to build up cross-border regions. Studies focusing on people's knowledge of these cross-border projects and regions have also been developed. The gap that might open up between the elite's projects and people's knowledge of them can raise several questions: is cross-border cooperation better understood as a functional or as a democratic and participatory opportunity? Are cross-border regions the desired laboratories for European integration? Are border people engaged in this institutionalized cooperation? First of all, this contribution will discuss these general questions in light of recent theoretical and practical studies on European cross-border cooperation. Secondly, it will exemplify the theory with a case study on the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion. After briefly presenting the main actors and processes involved in the cross-border region building, this paper shows the results of fieldwork based on a survey conducted by the author in Galicia and North Portugal. The investigation had three objectives: (a) to assess general knowledge of the term Euroregion, the cross-border bodies and the cross-border projects; (b) to assess the degree of relevance of cross-border cooperation to euroregional integration; and (c) to assess the degree of similarities and differences between Galicians and Northern Portuguese. The results of the survey show that the inhabitants of Galicia and North Portugal are mostly unaware of the existence and working methods of the different bodies that sustain the Euroregion, although they express a high level of interest in fostering cross-border cooperation initiatives and a high degree of empathy towards neighbors. This paper concludes by discussing the results of the case study in relation to the theoretical aspects presented in the first part.

Acknowledgments

The research from which this manuscript originated was made possible by a scholarship awarded by the Spanish Government (FPU Program) that funded my PhD. I wish to acknowledge Lucía G. Antelo for her support during fieldwork and everyone who kindly agreed to complete the survey. I am particularly grateful to Henk van Houtum and Martin van der Velde for their useful feedback on previous drafts of the paper. I would also like to thank the three anonymous referees who significantly helped to improve the paper.

Notes

1 This fact is explained by the lower land prices in North Portugal. As in other European examples (Buxeda 2003; Schulz 2002; van der Velde 2000) differentials due to the existence of the border are behind a good number of cross-border relationships.

2 New local bodies have been created lately, like the Uniminho Association or the Chaves-Verín and Tui-Valença Eurocities.

3 To follow the activities of these two bodies, go to their web sites: www.galicia-nortept.org (Working Community); www.eixoatlantico.com (Eixo Atlántico).

4 www.fceer.org.

5 Because the population is far larger than 100,000 individuals, in statistical terms it is considered an infinite population, so that the formula required to calculate the sample is n = Z²pq/E² (Cea 2004), where:

n: sampling quota; Z: Z-Score confidence level; p: positive variability; q: negative variability; E: error. In our case, p and q are complementary, so p + q = 1; E = 0.05; Z(0.90) = 1.64. It has to be stated that a 95% confidence level would have been preferred, but the fact that the survey was conducted only by the author in very different locations of Galicia and North Portugal made it very difficult to achieve. These results should therefore be seen as a first approach to the case study, which may be improved in the future by employing more advanced statistical research techniques.

6 In order to correctly understand this section, please refer to the Appendix, where questions and entire parts of the survey can be consulted.