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ABSTRACT
Mutual trust is an important element in starting cross-border processes, and institutional trust is vital to forging sound and effective cross-border cooperation. It is widely debated that the recent covidfencing process in Europe chipped away existing long and medium-term cross-border institutional ties, in most European borders, at least for some time. The fundamental point is that the sudden closing of national borders also revealed how important are effective and well-functioning cross-border institutions to direct the reopening of such borders into functional cross-border areas. To appreciate more in-depth the importance of cross-border institutional trust in post-pandemic times, this article analyses to what extent the EU b-solutions initiative contributes to reinforcing it along European cross-border regions. The analysis concluded that this EU initiative reinforces cross-border institutional trust by enhancing institutional capacity building, institutional knowledge sharing and stability/credibility as well as territorial integration in EU border regions. However, only a few European cross-border regions have benefited the most from this institutional support by b-solutions: the Benelux, plus Germany and France, as well as the Iberian cross-border areas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 We have used the studies corresponding to all selected cases under the first four b-solutions calls for proposals. As a result of the first call, only 10 pilot actions were selected by a panel of experts in legal and administrative CB matters. These experts had been selected according to their specialisation by the Commission and AEBR. The pilot actions were implemented for 15 months and delivered 10 final reports (first set of case studies). They also provided very fruitful information to better shape further calls and modify the approach, focussing on the need to support local stakeholders in defining the nature of the obstacles and possible solutions. To this end, every case selected through the following calls was assigned an expert who would guide the analysis and produce a report. The second set of studies was composed of the experts’ reports from 33 advice cases selected under the second call for proposals, 23 from the third and 24 from the fourth to fulfil the total 90 b-solutions 1.0 cases. The selection of cases, as well as the selection and matching of experts, followed specific criteria and a thorough methodology, which is described in detail in the first chapter of the first b-solutions compendium (AEBR & EC Citation2020a). To have a sufficient pool, there is an open call for experts on the project’s dedicated website, which remains open when closing the edition of this text.
2 These data are quite old, and much has happened since then, but this is the only available evidence on CBC awareness through a wide European survey.
3 Just look at any national newspaper or TV news. Any news from a border would most probably have to do with a conflict, crisis, natural hazard, etc.
4 Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC.
5 Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (Waste Framework Directive).
6 Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC Text with EEA relevance.
7 Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market.
8 Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).
9 When preparing the Compendium related to the first two b-solutions calls in (2019), the negotiations to adopt the so-called European Cross-Border Mechanism (ECBM) were progressing quite well, with a general feeling of an imminent approval. The instrument was considered to be within reach. However, at the end of 2020, the European Council decided to abandon it for the time being. Nevertheless, the expectations raised within the “CBC family” and the evidence shown about its appropriateness in many cross-border cases: roughly one in three reports from b-solutions cases points at such a tool as one of the best option to overcome the cross-border obstacle under study, but there are also important arguments in the literature (Engl and Evrard Citation2019) led us to think that it would be back on the agenda, probably in a more simplified format and with a different name. A strong lobby was deployed and, in April 2023, the REGI Committee at the European Parliament started a process ending with a Resolution of the Parliament on 14 September 2023 asking the Commission for retaking the dossier, amending the proposal, simplifying it and re-starting negotiations with the Council to “rescue” this tool with a more attractive format for Member States (EP Citation2023a). On 12 December, the Commission presented an amended proposal responding to the request of the Parliament but also to the Member States” concerns, though insisting on the need to respond to the obstacles affecting cross-border regions which cannot be solved with the current financing and legal instruments available at EU level (EC Citation2023).