Programme of the week: Oresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak

I haven't had a programme of the week for a while (programme of the season might be more accurate), so it is good to designate the new Oresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak for this week: www.interreg-oks.eu. The name is a bit of a mouthful for non-Scandinavians, so the abbreviation OKS is very welcome.


This is an particularly interesting programme, as it is made up two distinct areas. One area has long experience of co-operation and INTERREG - the Oresund area, while the other - Kattegat-Skagerrak - is newly eligible for EU funding. Oresund, with its bridge and the Copenhagen-Malmo axis, evidently has a significant urban dimension, along with aspects linked to the cross-border labour market. Kattegat-Skagerrak is a larger, more rural and maritime area (although with Gothenburg and Oslo is has a urban element too), and will be building from a more basic starting point.

The website is well designed and already contains much background information. It is in Danish/Swedish only at the moment, but I am sure that English language info will be added to demonstrate successes!

Latest cross-border news from Africa

Early on in this blog, I noted some cross-border initiatives on-going in Africa. I am pleased to report that the African Union's Border Programme has taken several steps forward. Indeed, as I type there is a seminar taking place in Djibouti where a team of experts are finalising the Action Plan for the Border Programme.

The Programme is particularly interesting, as it combines several elements. In addition to the aim of encouraging the classic "INTERREG"-style programmes and projects, it also aims to build exchanges of experiences, not only across Africa, but also with other continents. Last but not least, it aims to deal with the continuing issue of delimitation and demarcation of African borders. A poisoned chalice left by the colonial powers, many African borders are poorly defined, uncertain and most are not marked out on the ground.

This is going to provide a series of challenges, not least in co-ordinating the different elements. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see such ambition. The scale of borders in Africa is astonishing: the number of borders which exceed 1,000km (some even exceed 2,000km) is far greater than the figures for Europe. Ambition is a requirement - as is optimism.

The Programme is certainly needed (as is the funding!) Good luck to them.

Still still here

I know that the idea of a blog is to keep it fairly up-to-date, but a series of unfortunate events has prevented this happening recently. I will try to improve, although a full relaunch may need to wait until the New Year. As a minimum, the news links will be updated, as there is an awful lot of CBC activity at the moment.

Transnational rapidity

It has been interesting to see that the transnational programmes - normally considered more complicated than cross-border programmes - have made much quicker progress towards approval. Already more than half the transnational programmes are already approved.

Check out the following programmes: Alpine Space (www.alpinespace.org/2007-20130.html), Atlantic Space (www.coop-atlantico.com/fr/programa.php - new website!), North-West Europe (www.nweurope.org/), South-West Europe (www.interreg-sudoe.org/castellano/index.asp), North Sea (www.northsearegion.eu/ivb/home/), Northern Periphery (www.northernperiphery.net/2007/) and Madeira-Azores-Canaries (www.interreg-mac.org/es/znuevomacweb.jsp).

To note that North-West Europe and the North Sea have already launched calls for projects. Time to get busy.

Latest news on cross-border programmes

There has been a lot of action in the last few weeks, so it's time for a quick update. Actually, the programme approval process has moved faster than some of the programmes have been able to, as most of the new websites are not yet up and running.

On the cross-border side of things, Euregio Maas-Rijn (www.interregemr.eu/site_fr/interreg_emr/interreg_emr.php), Ireland-Wales, Italy-Austria, Bodensee (www.interreg.org/) and Austria-Bavaria (www.interreg-bayaut.net/interreg_iv/sitemap.html are all up and running already.

Let's hope that the calls for projects are launched soon. Comments welcome if anyone has information on these.

Still here!

It's been a while, but this blog is still running, I promise. It's a very busy period, and finding the time to write something pertinent and interesting (always a difficult task at the best of times) has been particularly challenging.

Coming soon - an update on new programmes!

We have a winner!

The INTERREG IV C interregional programme was approved today (11 September). It is thus the first of the new territorial co-operation programmes to be approved - congratulations to those who chose "other programme" in this blog's poll to predict the first programme approved.

The IV C programme has very sensibly kept the "INTERREG" brand in the programme title as it's much better known and much easier to say than European Territorial Co-operation. They do not appear to have a website set up yet, although there is some info on the preceding programme's website (www.interreg3c.net/web/fic_en). The website www.interreg4c.eu is "reserved" which might be worth watching.

Watch out for the programme's big launch conference in Lisbon next week and for a rapid launch of the call for projects. The new funding period is up and running!