European region
Europaregion , Euroregion or Euregio ( neologism from Latin Europe and Regio ) denotes transnational regions in Europe , mostly with an economic focus. They are intended to promote cross-border cooperation and the regions themselves in social and cultural terms. In addition to the aspect of cross-border cooperation, the European Union also hopes for a strengthening of the potentially weaker peripheral regions of the individual member states.
definition
The terms themselves are not clearly defined, which is why Euregios can be found in different legal forms :
- fixed associations under public law
- fixed associations under private law
- loose associations that do not form a legal person
The name European region is derived from the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention of 1980 on cross-border cooperation between the regions of Europe, the so-called Madrid Convention . A European region comprises areas from at least two cooperating countries.
Examples
The oldest European region is the EUREGIO, founded in 1958 and based in Gronau , which as a supranational local authority association along the North Rhine-Westphalian-Lower Saxony border includes around 130 communities in the Netherlands and Germany.
Another Euregio on the border of North Rhine-Westphalia is the Euregio Meuse-Rhine (EMR), which is made up of five sub-areas in three countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany). One of the activities of cross-border cooperation in the EMR is the promotion of multilingualism (Dutch, French, German).
To the south of the EMR is the European region Greater Region (formerly Saar-Lor-Lux ). In this core region of Europe, the French region of Lorraine , the German federal states Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate , the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , the Belgian region of Wallonia and the German-speaking and French communities of Belgium have come together.
On the border between Bavaria , Austria and the Czech Republic is European region Danube-Vltava active.
See also
literature
- Hans Joachim Kujath : German metropolitan regions as nodes in European networks. In: Geographical Rundschau. Issue 3/2005. Westermann, Braunschweig 2005, pp. 20-27
- Marzena Schöne: Significance, typology and development prospects of the German-Polish and German-Czech Euroregions. Dissertation. Dresden 2006. Digitized version (pdf, 6.1 MB)