The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Results and perspectives of transnational cooperation (Interreg) for territorial development

Project briefing

  • Status Completed
  • Project duration May 2021 – October 2022
  • Programme MORO

The project supported the BMI and the BBSR in the field of transnational cooperation. It helped with the targeted approach of German partners, especially municipal and regional actors. Programme platforms, online information and a national kick-off conference helped to promote territorial development-related projects within the Interreg programmes 2021-2027.

Background

The implementation of the Interreg B programmes for the funding period 2021-2027 started with the first project calls during the fourth quarter of 2021. The basis for this is the EU Regulation for European Territorial Cooperation applicable to this funding period. The Interreg B 2021-2027 funding programme, which now exists in its fifth funding period, is considered to have major European added value in this regulation.

At the same time, with the European Green Deal, the New Leipzig Charta, the Territorial Agenda 2030 and several other strategies, new framework documents have been adopted at Member State and EU level to accompany and support the transformation of our European society towards more cohesion and sustainability. Germany is participating in the six transnational Interreg B programmes Alpine Space, Danube Region, North Sea Region, Northwest Europe, Baltic Sea Region and Central Europe from 2021-2027. The programmes aim to promote the development of the respective programme area through transnational projects, amongst others in the fields of innovation, energy and climate change, environment and resource efficiency, transport, and social affairs.

In the expiring funding period (2014-2020), there were already many successful transnational projects that were able to achieve important results on site with integrated approaches. However, there was a shift in the thematic focus – which consequently also affected the project actors – towards sectoral projects within the framework of the rather competition-oriented Europe 2020 strategy. Therefore, the participation of local and regional authorities decreased compared to the funding period 2007-2013. The reorientation of the EU Structural Funds – and thus also of Interreg B – from 2021 onwards offers the opportunity to bring territorially integrated topics back to the foreground and to make the programmes more attractive for local and regional actors.

Objective

The project supported the BMI and the BBSR in the area of European transnational cooperation. The federal government was and is interested in ensuring that the transnational programmes address a broad spectrum of German partners (especially municipal and regional actors) and that they place their own, territorial development-related projects in a European context. The project informed interested stakeholders about the funding opportunities of the Interreg B programmes 2021-2027 and communicated the added value of transnational cooperation. It should become clear that it is worthwhile for cities and regions as well as other actors to solve territorial issues in cooperation with their European neighbours.

In this context, it was important to use the momentum for integrated, territorial development developed by the revision of the Territorial Agenda of the EU, the New Leipzig Charta as well as the Green Deal to win more local and regional actors back for transnational cooperation. For example, the project clarified the question how the concrete political objectives from the EU structural fund regulations and the thematic funding priorities defined in the six Interreg B programme areas find practical application through place-based, integrated projects. The following key questions emerged: What characterises a territorially integrated approach within Interreg B? Which interdisciplinary actor constellations are helpful for this? And how can these groups of actors at regional and local level be increasingly motivated and mobilised for the development and application of Interreg B projects?

Contractors of the research project were blue! advancing european projects GbR (Munich) and the German Association for Housing, Urban Development and Spatial Planning (DV) (Berlin/Brussels).

Contact us

  • Brigitte Ahlke
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division RS 3 "European Spatial and Urban Development"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-2330
    Email: brigitte.ahlke@bbr.bund.de

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