Debate: The Council's lack of will to move the European cross-border mechanism forward
Date: WEDNESDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2021
Speaker: Anže Logar
Language: EN

Over the last three years, the co-legislators have worked very hard to put together the Regulation on Interreg for the 2021-2027 period which was adopted recently. I’m sure the new regulatory framework will continue to pave the way towards deeper European integration, and I’m very thankful to you for this, especially to Mr Arimont and Mr Omarjee. Although a lot has been done in the field of territorial cooperation, some challenges persist. In the case of cross-border cooperation, legal and administrative obstacles to build up joint projects around internal borders of the EU are a fact. They exist and we cannot deny it. Several EU multilateral and bilateral tools for cross-border cooperation are already available, for example the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation, but they cannot solve all the challenges we encounter on the ground. In that sense, when back in 2018, the Commission presented a legislative proposal for a mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in a cross-border context, the so-called ECBM (European Cross-Border Mechanism), the Council welcomed it and examined it carefully.  The Commission proposal entailed many legal questions as it directly touched upon the issue of national sovereignty and the relationship between the legal orders of the Member States. This is why Council asked its legal service to examine the ECBM proposal, to assess the choice of the legal basis, the compatibility of the legislative proposal with the Treaties, as well as the choice of the legal instrument and its voluntary nature. The legal service outlined serious concerns as to the legal effects of the mechanism and the risk of undermining other policies of the Union or the competitiveness of Member States to enter into agreements with third states. Additionally, the voluntary nature of the mechanism is difficult to reconcile with the principle of uniform application of the treaties. As a result, during the Portuguese Presidency, experts at working level considered that the ECBM proposal raised more questions than answers and that any further work would require a complete redesign of the instrument, especially in view of the legal difficulties I mentioned. Council experts concluded, therefore, that the current proposal was not a good basis for continuing the legislative discussion. As you can imagine, that was not an easy conclusion to reach. Legal and administrative obstacles in a cross-border context persist. We are aware of them and of the reality on the ground.  This is also why on 5 October the Council adopted its conclusion on the Commission’s report on EU Border Regions: Living labs of European integration, where the Council invites the Commission to continue exploring ways to boost the potential of EU border regions in close cooperation with Member States.  So I would suggest that we work together to look for alternative instruments of coordination among Member States, provided that they are limited to establishing methods and procedures under which Member States would mutually agree on solving legal and administrative obstacles with a view to achieving the objectives of cohesion. By working together, we will find the best way to improve the situation in border regions.  In this respect allow me to acknowledge the important work done by the Committee on Regional Development and notably by Ms Tolleret and Mr Gozi in the context of the ECBM. I’m convinced this work will be very relevant in future discussions. Thank you very much for your attention.