Tri-national metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine

The Tri-national Metropolitan Region Upper Rhine (TMO; French Région métropolitaine trinational du Rhin supérieur ) is a European region on the Upper Rhine . It includes Alsace in France, southern and central Baden and the southern Palatinate in Germany, as well as the Swiss cantons of Basel-Stadt , Basel-Landschaft , Jura , Solothurn and Aargau with around 6 million inhabitants on 21,500 km². The metropolitan area was founded on December 9, 2010.

The gross national product of the 1,817 municipalities in the region was 202.5 billion euros in 2008, which corresponds to the gross national product of countries like Ireland or Finland .

The Eurodistricts PAMINA , Strasbourg / Ortenau , Region Freiburg / Center et Sud Alsace and Basel (TEB) are in the TMO .

history

The people on both sides of the Rhine have always regarded each other as culturally and economically belonging, which, however, was often viewed differently by the governments between the 17th and 20th centuries. The language, the Alemannic dialect , which was spoken and is sometimes still used in northern Switzerland, Alsace and southern Baden, testifies to the closeness of the region. Although the bridge, built under the Basel prince-bishop Heinrich von Thun in 1225 , was the first and only fixed Rhine crossing between Lake Constance and the mouth of the Rhine, the river meant a shared waterway for the region and never a separation.

After the Upper Rhine formed the natural border between the empire and the kingdom of France with the Peace of Westphalia , the new rulers operated for centuries a Frenchization of the Landes de ce côté du Rhin (left bank of the Rhine), so that today the linguistic communication with the people outre-Rhin (on the right bank of the Rhine) is made more difficult: On the one hand, the Alsatians only rarely speak Alemannic, while on the other hand, High German is increasingly displacing the dialect. English is establishing itself as the lingua franca between Germans and French.

After the Second World War, Mayor Joseph Rey from Colmar organized the first meeting between mayors on both sides of the Rhine in 1956. 1971 was the beginning of regular trinational administrative talks (Conference Tripartite). In 1975, the Bonn Agreement institutionalized cross-border cooperation. The foreign ministries in Bonn, Paris and Bern set up a government commission with two regional committees in the north and south of the mandate area. Based on similarities in the Alemannic roots as well as the environmental and anti-nuclear power movement, the Dreyeckland was "founded" in the 1970s .

In 1988 the state of Baden-Württemberg presented at the XVII. Triennale in Milan, which was dedicated to the topic “The cities of the world and the future of metropolises”, an exhibition contribution with the title “The Upper Rhine - another metropolis”. It was conceived as a counterpoint to the other drafts and dealt with the characteristics of a space with a decentralized settlement structure with a simultaneous high population density.

Since 1990, the Upper Rhine region has been playing a pilot role in the implementation of the INTERREG community initiative . Since then, 380 cross-border projects have been co-financed and implemented with European funding. In 1992 the regional committees of the government commission for the German-French-Swiss Upper Rhine Conference merged with a secretariat in Kehl (1996). In 1997, the elected created the Upper Rhine Council to complement it .

In 1999 the “Spatial Planning” working group of the German-French-Swiss Upper Rhine Conference published the spatial planning orientation framework “Upper Rhine Habitat - A Common Future” at the 7th Three-Country Congress in Neustadt adW. For the first time there is a detailed description of the "Decentralized three-country metropolis Upper Rhine". In 2002 in the Baden-Württemberg state development plan, the areas of Karlsruhe / Pforzheim, Rhine-Neckar, Offenburg, Freiburg and the triangle of three countries were defined as the “trinational area of the Upper Rhine”. It is to be "treated in the sense of a metropolitan region and developed as a future region in a sustainable, cross-border manner." on the agenda of the cross-border bodies. In 2006 the Regional Planning Working Group of the Upper Rhine Conference published the BAK study "The Upper Rhine Area as a European Metropolitan Region".

In 2007 the Presidium of the Upper Rhine Conference set up an ad hoc group “Metropolitan Region”. The aim was to bring together and coordinate the various initiatives on the Upper Rhine metropolitan region in the mandate area of the Upper Rhine Conference. At the same time, a working group made up of representatives from the chambers of industry and commerce from Germany, France and Switzerland, the regional associations and the city network, the Alsace region, the Freiburg regional council and the Basiliensis region drew up a discussion paper that outlines a model for the Upper Rhine and priority areas for action.

On the basis of this paper, the 11th Three-Country Congress in Strasbourg on January 11, 2008 stated in a joint declaration :

"On the Upper Rhine, between the Jura, Vosges, Black Forest and Palatinate Forest, six million people live on 21,508 square kilometers in an area that is characterized by a close-knit network of dynamic cities with rural areas in between."

On March 30, 2009, the tri-national metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine was presented to representatives of the DG Regio of the EU Commission in the Baden-Württemberg state representation in Brussels. At the beginning of 2010, the Franco-German Council of Ministers anchored the Upper Rhine trinational metropolitan region in the Franco-German Agenda 2020 and thus recognized the cooperation between France, Germany and Switzerland on the Upper Rhine.

At a summer course of the Association of Universities on the Upper Rhine (Eucor) in August 2010, students discussed the limits of trinational cooperation: Disappointed, the participants realized: Thinking is easy, but acting as you had thought is difficult . There are too many differences between the three countries in the distribution of competencies, in law and administration and in social discussion, so that joint action reaches the limits of the different structures. On December 2, 2010, the 12th three-country congress took place in Basel, which dealt with the potential of the educational area between Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Karlsruhe.

Official logo of the Trinational Metropolitan Region Upper Rhine

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the German-French-Swiss Government Commission on December 9, 2010 in the Burda Media Tower in Offenburg, Jürg Schärer, Vice President of the Regio Basiliensis, Government Councilor Urs Wüthrich-Pelloli , President of the Upper Rhine Conference , District President Julian Würtenberger , Vice President signed of the Upper Rhine Conference, Pierre Etienne Bindschaedler, PDG Soprema, President Alsace Enérgivie and Stefan Fisch, Rector of the German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer the founding declaration of the tri-national metropolitan region Upper Rhine. This was followed by the establishment of the tri-national metropolitan region by Philippe Richert , Minister for Local Authorities, Ministère de l'Intérieur, Paris, Werner Hoyer , Minister of State in the Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Franco-German Cooperation, Berlin, and Peter Maurer , State Secretary Confirmed in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Bern as representative of the nation states by signing the Offenburg Declaration. At the same time, the logo of the tri-national metropolitan region Upper Rhine was confirmed.

In 2013 the EU decided on a new regional policy in which the TMO should also play a role in terms of financing.

Functional criteria

The German Ministerial Conference for Spatial Planning defines European metropolitan regions as “spatial and functional locations whose outstanding functions radiate across borders on an international scale”.

Central political and economic institutions with decision-making and control functions on the Upper Rhine are the European Parliament , the Council of Europe , the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg and the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe also radiates beyond its purely national function.

The universities ( University of Basel , DH Lörrach , Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg , University of Offenburg , University of Furtwangen , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , University of Koblenz-Landau , University of Strasbourg , University of Upper Alsace ) as well as another 167 research and Scientific institutions in the region.

The German-French television program ARTE , the Theaters Basel , Theater Freiburg , Theater Baden-Baden , the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe and the Opéra du Rhin have a cultural impact across national borders .

The airports in Karlsruhe / Baden-Baden, Strasbourg and Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport already serve the region on the Upper Rhine across borders. The Rhine has always been an international waterway. The connection of the high-speed TGV / ICE (Karlsruhe) was completed with the connection to Freiburg. The exhibition venues ( pattern Messe Basel , Messe Freiburg , Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Karlsruhe Exhibition z, Offenburg) difficult. Currently still competitive thinking and cross-border cooperation.

organization structure

Organizational structure of the trinational metropolitan region Upper Rhine

The trinational metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine is organized in four pillars. Each pillar forms a working group for one of the four fields of action: politics, business, science and civil society and brings together representatives from the three partner countries. The aim is to develop strategies and goals together and to achieve a functioning network for all parties involved by bundling and coordinating activities in the TMO area ( multi-level governance ).

politics

In the political pillar, representatives of the DF-CH Government Commission (foreign ministries), the DF-CH Upper Rhine Conference (regional administrations), the Upper Rhine Council (elected) and the communal Eurodistricts work together (vertical governance). Members of the European Parliament from the Upper Rhine are also involved. The Upper Rhine Conference is currently still the key driver. Your ad hoc group does the development work and brings the actors together. In addition, there is the activation of funding from the INTERREG IV program.

economy

The economic pillar brings together representatives of the chambers of industry and commerce, chambers of crafts, business associations, but also large companies, trade union representatives and the employment services of the three countries. The goal is u. a. the formation of cross-border clusters and the development of location marketing.

science

The science pillar is made up of representatives from the Upper Rhine universities, colleges, professional academies and 167 research institutions. The task and function of the science pillar is to promote cross-border cooperation and network building in the application and research-oriented field of science.

From 2012 to 2014 a research program " Humanism as an intellectual current" ran with the four participants University of Strasbourg , University of Upper Alsace , University of Basel and Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg ; a European regional development fund provided co-financing. In a first step in 2012/13, seven public libraries on the Upper Rhine exhibited their treasures and rarities from the 15th and 16th centuries, especially from the area of early printing , and presented them to the wider public, supported by lectures and colloquia. The resulting database is intended to make future scientific research of the early humanists and their ancient idea generators much easier.

Civil society

In the civil society pillar, citizens, volunteers, ombudsmen, employees of citizens' contact points, etc. from the Upper Rhine meet. They should be actively involved in the process of building the trinational metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine. In citizens' forums in Strasbourg, Basel and Karlsruhe, experiences and criticism, wishes and suggestions of civil society actors in all regions involved are brought together.

aims

The memorandum of September 12, 2007 specifies the goals of international cooperation:

"Increased networking of potentials in the fields of science, research and education (Upper Rhine knowledge region)"
"Realization of a unified Upper Rhine economic area internally and its joint presentation to the outside world (tri-national European metropolitan region as corporate identity )"
"Involving the population in the process of building a tri-national European metropolitan region Upper Rhine (speak together - think together - act together). Be a citizen of the Upper Rhine . "
"Anchoring the European institutions in Strasbourg"
"Rapid implementation of European transport projects on the Upper Rhine (Europe's transport hub)"
"Promotion of culture and entertainment"
"Networking civil society"
"Securing natural resources, sustainability and environmental protection"

criticism

The BUND -Regionalverband Südlicher Oberrhein criticizes the lack of and belated involvement of the citizens in the adoption of the concept. He also points out the possible consequences of creating a metropolitan region for the environment on the Upper Rhine, for example through the Upper Rhine traffic hub project . According to BUND, the quality of life could also deteriorate if the metropolitan region is only geared towards growth.