21 September will mark the celebration of #interreg25 years achievement and the launch of the Cross-Border Review by Commissioner Corina Creţu and DG REGIO’s senior management on 12 borders. On 21 September the Commissioner will officially open a 3 months’ on-line public consultation on Overcoming Obstacles in Border Regions.

For the last 25 years, the EU has been investing in cross-border cooperation through Interreg, a financing instrument for regional development across borders. Much progress has been made, difficulties remain in many areas, therefore the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) is planing to examine the remaining obstacles how they affect people, organisations, businesses and public authorities in border regions. This analysis could in the future be used to assess whether the Commission can take further action, either on its own initiative or together with national and regional authorities.

The planned consultation will cover both internal EU border regions, as well as border regions encompassing regions in EU countries and EFTA/EEA countries. It will run from 21 September to 21 December 2015. The results of the consultations will be publicly available online, and will also feed into a study to be conducted between mid-2015 and the end of 2016. The aim of the study will be to produce conclusions and practical suggestions on how the EU and its partners can ease remaining obstacles.

Starting from 21 September 2015, you can contribute to the consultation.

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Source: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/cooperation/european-territorial/cross-border/#6