- The number of project partners in regions varies significantly within the countries even more than between countries
- There are in total 21 regions not involved in any interregional cooperation project. These can be found in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK
Observations for policy
The cooperation patterns of stakeholders in territorial cooperation differ widely throughout Europe. Largely, the number of project partners in regions in the core of Europe tends to be lower in other parts. However, disparities within the countries are quite remarkable, and are usually greater than disparities between countries.
Policy context
Cooperation is an important dimension of the European integration and European regional policy. Cross-border cooperation is the oldest and dominant form and transnational coperation covers larger territories of Europe, lately for some supported by the Commission as so-called European macro regions.
Interregional cooperation, also known as INTERREG strand C, covers all EU Member States and beyond. In principle, entities from all regions have equal opportunities to cooperate in projects. Projects in strand C build networks to develop good practice and facilitate the exchange and transfer of experiences by successful regions. It showcases what regions do well to the benefit of those still investing.
This allows meaningful work between regions from several EU Member States. As for the next programming period (2014-2020) it is expected that territorial cooperation programmes will increase in importance and financial volume.
Map interpretation
The map shows the degree of cooperation, especially in terms of number of project partners in interregional cooperation projects for the programming period 2000-2013 (i.e. INTERREG IIIC and IVC).
The number of project partners from a region taking part in interregional cooperation projects ranged from mere 0 to 89 at maximum. While the general territorial patterns are quite heterogeneous, the six regions with the highest number of project partners (50 or more) can be found in Italy (2), Spain (2), Lithuania, and Estonia.
On the other end of the spectrum, 21 regions do not cooperate in any project under INTERREG strand C. These regions can be found in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, United Kingdom and Switzerland. Largely, the core of Europe tends o have only small number of regions collaborating with other regions in Europe. At the same time, the cooperation intensity of regions within a country seems to show larger differences than between countries.
Concepts and methods
Since 2011 nearly 400 projects were implemented under the INTERREG IIIC and IVC initiatives involving more than 4000 partners. The degree of cooperation was measured by counting in each region the number of project partners involved in INTERREG IIIC and IVC projects.