Today the Commission adopted the amended proposal for a regulation to facilitate cross-border solutions, so as to help Member States solve the obstacles that make the daily lives of 150 million European citizens living in Europe’s cross-border areas difficult.

Barriers faced by citizens, businesses and public organizations in these areas include different technical standards or national administrative and legal provisions that do not take into account the cross-border dimension.

These barriers can affect the development of infrastructure and the operation of cross-border public services.

Barriers of this kind make life difficult for cross-border societies by, for example, limiting access to health care services (including emergency services) and the ability to coordinate disaster response efforts as well as cooperation on joint infrastructure projects, between others.

The removal of these obstacles is expected to significantly improve the functioning of the single market. According to a study funded by the Commission, removing 20% ​​of existing legal and administrative barriers is expected to boost GDP by 2% in cross-border regions and create over one million jobs.

What does the regulation mean in practice?

The Commission proposes to Member States to set up cross-border coordination points (CBPs), a new service that will assess requests from stakeholders in border areas about possible obstacles, and act as a liaison between these parties and national authorities. The regulation ensures that, after each request has been assessed, interested parties will receive a response explaining how it will be dealt with.

In the event that an obstacle does exist and there is no bilateral or international cooperation agreement that would serve to implement a solution, Member States can then apply the cross-border facilitation tool, an optional standardized procedure to address administrative and legal obstacles in cross-border areas. Although all requests should be responded to, the decision whether or not to resolve an obstacle remains the responsibility of the competent national authorities.

The Regulation also proposes to establish a DSO network together with the Commission to create a forum for the exchange of best practices and knowledge.

Record

In May 2018, the Commission submitted a proposal for a regulation establishing a mechanism to deal with legal and administrative obstacles in a cross-border context (proposal for the EDM). However, no agreement was reached between the Parliament and the Council on the regulation. In September 2023, Parliament adopted an own-initiative legislative resolution with recommendations to the Commission aimed at breaking the deadlock on the ESM proposal. With the new regulation on “facilitating cross-border solutions”, the Commission amended the proposal it submitted in 2018, taking due account of the reservations and recommendations of the two co-legislators, while at the same time placing an undiminished emphasis on solving the obstacles that make life difficult for cross-border societies . The Commission’s proposal will be debated in the European Parliament and the Council.

The proposal complements a number of Commission initiatives to support border regions, such as the ‘b-solutions’ initiative 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. Thanks to the knowledge gathered from more than 150 identified cases it was judged that a European legal tool like the one proposed today is going to help solve more than a third of the cases.

In 2021, the Commission also published a report entitled ‘EU border regions — Living workshops of European integration’, which demonstrates the positive results — both for border regions and for the Union as a whole — of addressing cross-border obstacles. The report also reflected on some of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the cross-border barriers that resulted from the restrictions imposed.

“Today the European Commission is taking another step to remove even more of the long-standing barriers to the EU’s single market. Many of our cross-border regions still face legal and administrative barriers, which are holding back not only business activity and economic performance , but also for cross-border relief efforts — such as fighting forest fires and providing emergency medical aid. Our proposal aims to promote seamless cooperation between citizens, public authorities and businesses in these vital areas, as well as unlocking their potential that will stimulate growth and prosperity, with the aim of further strengthening the single market,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice president for an Economy in the Service of People – 12/12/2023

“Despite the 30 years that have passed since the creation of the single market, there are still many obstacles that prevent border regions from reaping the full benefits of EU integration. With the proposal to facilitate cross-border solutions, we propose to national authorities a flexible and simple tool to remove these obstacles. People living in border areas represent a third of the EU’s population; today’s proposal represents the possibility of a tangible improvement in their daily lives,” said Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reform – 12/12/2023.

Nikos Andritsos