Cross-border Policy in Europe: Implementing INTERREG III-A, France–Spain

Abstract

It is well known that increased European integration has encouraged new forms of governing within the member states. This paper focuses on the process of Europeanization by comparing the implementation of the cross-border co-operation programme INTERREG in three separate cases. This article questions the capacity of the European Commission to encourage regional and sub-regional actors to co-operate and form multi-level networks that increase territorial development through state borders. This paper argues that the local adaptation of Commission incentives depends both on the degree to which border actors are satisfied with national policies and on actors' capacity to consolidate pro-European institutional arrangements.

Keywords:

• Structural funds
• cross-border co-operation
• INTERREG
• historical new institutionalism

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to express thanks to Michael Keating (EUI, Florence), Andy Smith (IEP, Bordeaux) and Francesc Morata (UAB, Barcelona).

Notes

¹In a context of appropriation/translation of the notion of multi-level governance by the European Commission, the epistemological rupture between policy scientists and the analysed object is more necessary than never. A difference must be established between multi-level governance ‘as a model of implementation’, and multi-level governance ‘as an analytical framework’.

² Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques (Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units): NUTS I include multi-regional territories; NUTS II are usually regions; NUTS III corresponds to provinces/departments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jean-Baptiste Harguindéguy

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