Today, the Commission has adopted an amended proposal for a ‘Regulation on Facilitating Cross-Border Solutions’ in order to help Member States resolve obstacles that are impacting the daily lives of the 150 million European citizens living in Europe’s cross-border regions.
- 12 December 2023
The obstacles that citizens, businesses, and public administrations face in these regions include different technical standards or national administrative and legal provisions that do not consider the cross-border dimension. These obstacles can impact the development of infrastructure and the operation of cross-border public services. Obstacles of this nature hamper the lives of cross-border communities, for example, by reducing access to healthcare services (including emergency) and limiting their ability to coordinate disaster response efforts and collaborate on joint infrastructure projects, amongst others.
Tackling these obstacles would significantly improve the functioning of the EU Single Market. A study funded by the Commission estimates that removing 20% of the current legal and administrative obstacles would boost GDP by 2% in cross-border regions and create over one million jobs.
What the Regulation means in practice
The Commission proposes that Member States set up Cross-Border Coordination Points (CBCP), a new service which will assess any request submitted by border stakeholders on potential obstacles, and act as a liaison between them and the national authorities. The Regulation ensures that stakeholders receive a response after the assessment of each request, explaining how it will be treated.
If an obstacle does in fact exist and if there is no bilateral or international cooperation agreement in place that could be used to implement a solution, Member States can then apply the Cross-Border Facilitation Tool, a voluntary standard procedure designed to resolve administrative and legal obstacles in cross-border regions. While each request must be answered to, the decision on whether or not to resolve an obstacle remains the prerogative of the competent national authorities.
The Regulation also proposes creating a network of CBCPs alongside the Commission, to create a forum for exchanging best practices and sharing knowledge.
Quotes
The Executive Vice-President for an Economy that Works for People Valdis Dombrovskis said: “Today, the European Commission is taking another step to remove more of the longstanding barriers to the EU single market. Our many cross-border regions still face legal and administrative obstacles that not only hold up business activity and economic performance but also hinder cross-border relief efforts – such as fighting wildfires and providing emergency medical assistance. Our proposal aims to promote seamless cooperation between people, public authorities, and businesses in these vital regions, as well as unlock their potential to stimulate more growth and prosperity to further strengthen the single market.”
Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira said: “Even 30 years after setting up the Single Market, there are still many obstacles which are hindering border regions from reaping the full benefits of EU integration. With the proposal for facilitating cross-border solutions, we propose to national authorities a flexible and simple tool to remove these obstacles. People living in border regions represent one third of the EU’s population; today’s proposal represents the possibility of a concrete improvement in their day-to-day lives.”
Background
In May 2018, the Commission proposed a regulation on a mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in a cross-border context (the ECBM proposal). However, no agreement was reached between the Parliament and Council on the file. In September 2023, Parliament adopted an own-initiative legislative resolution, with recommendations to the Commission aiming to overcome the stalemate on the ECBM proposal. With the new Regulation on ’Facilitating Cross-Border Solutions,’ the Commission is amending its 2018 proposal by taking due account of the concerns and recommendations made by the two co-legislators, while maintaining its original focus of resolving obstacles that hamper the lives of cross-border communities. The Commission’s proposal will now be negotiated by the Parliament and the Council.
The proposal complements a number of Commission initiatives to support border regions, such as ‘b-solutions,’ launched in 2018 to provide legal support to public authorities to identify the root causes of legal and administrative obstacles and to explore possible solutions. Knowledge gained from the more than 150 cases identified showed that a European legal tool, like the one being proposed today, would help to solve more than one third of the cases.
In 2021, the Commission also published a report on ‘EU Border Regions - Living Labs of European Integration,’ that demonstrates the positive effects – both for border regions and for the Union as a whole – of addressing cross border obstacles. It also included a reflection on some of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the cross-border obstacles that arose because of the restrictions imposed.