For more than 20 years, Interreg transnational programmes have been contributing to EU territorial development, and to the need for a smarter, greener and more social Europe. For this purpose, European policies have been shaped over time to facilitate and improve such initiatives and therefore, contribute to Europe’s economic, social, environmental and cultural development. The results achieved thus far highlight the benefits of those programmes with thousands of approved projects in different strategic fields (innovation, competitiveness, climate change, governance, etc.), thousands beneficiaries from public and private entities, etc. Even if such results show the success of Interreg’s transnational programmes, current and future challenges remain and require an adjustment in EU policies.

In order to guarantee the success of transnational cooperation, it is crucial to ensure that policies respond adequately to the related sectors’ developments on the one hand, and that their content is sufficiently flexible and adaptable to territorial realities, on the other. Furthermore, even if European objectives are common to all the Member States, territorial realities remain varied and such differences have to be taken into account in order to guarantee optimal outcomes.

This participatory workshop aims at eliciting the group’s collective intelligence regarding the future of transnational cooperation for a smarter, greener and more social Europe, with a special focus on energy efficiency, risks management and competitiveness.  Through this session, we will identify the existing needs and challenges and confront those with the different territorial realities with the objective of developing a set of recommendations to adapt, adjust and improve European transnational cooperation for the future programming period.  A variety of stakeholders Policy-makers, practitioners, elected representative, researchers, will be gathered together in parallel roundtable discussions (format with one moderator per table). This will allow the participants to establish the state of play of those questions in Europe and to identify the specific needs thanks to a set of common questions around the added value of transnational cooperation and the experiences from Interreg transnational projects. This dialogue, which will be open to the audience, will highlight the territorial obstacles and needs and identify the gaps of transnational cooperation through real experience from the ground. From this dialogue, a set of practical recommendations will emerge, serving to improve existing policies and respond better to citizens’ needs.

When: 10/10/2019 from 9.15 to 10.45am.

Where: Mont des Arts, Brussels (European Week of Regions & Cities).