This article aims at evaluating the role played by existing European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation in cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation. These legal instruments have developed mainly in southern and eastern Europe. The article highlights that their principal range of actions concerns strategic cooperation for economic development, that differs from the fonctions that were thought in the definition of the instrument, such as cooperation to develop cross-border public service provision. Finally the article defines the existing obstacles for this cooperation in the field of public service and in cross-border cooperation in general. 

Paper presented at the 54th ERSA Congress, St. Petersburg, 26-29 August, 2014