Editorial: New challenges for European cross-border and transboundary cooperation

Abstract

While a gradual increase in the permeability of the boundaries present in Europe was long seen as a linear process irreversible in nature, that situation in fact started to change around 2015. The process that then ensued reflected crises associated with influxes of refugees, the geopolitical situation in Ukraine, and then, from 2020 onwards, the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes might further be set against the two facts that there are, on the one hand, numerous locations in which cross-border or transboundary functional connections have become so strong that mechanisms hitherto acting in support of their development simply fail to suffice; as well as, on the other hand, many near-border areas that remain entirely peripheral. Pandemic circumstances made plain the inadequate level of institutional support extended to the development and functioning of transboundary functional areas, including as regards, their labour markets. And so to the articles brought together in the present edition of ‘Europa XXI’, which seek to address the above issues and derived research questions. They do this by way of both general reflection and the concrete results of research carried out on the situations in border areas, as well as the conditioning, level and structure of border traffic. Taken together, the texts presented here incline the reader to conclude that EU support for cross-border or transboundary cooperation needs redefining even in the present, and all the more so as we arrive at further programming periods. The support in question ought to be coordinated more effectively with Cohesion Policy as a whole, while also taking the global geopolitical context into account. It should also address matters of cross-border or transboundary public services, resilience in the face of crisis, and the natural heritage present in or constituted by border zones.