• Beyond Borders. Culture, Language, and Identity in European Integration

    The conference was jointly organized by the University of Girona (UdG) and the Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network (TEIN), with the support of the Borders in Globalization-21st Century project, and took place on the 21st and 22nd of October 2025 at the University of Girona.

    In an increasingly interconnected world, the overlap of identities, languages, and other cultural elements represents both a challenge and an opportunity for cross-border cooperation and European integration. On one hand, these elements can serve as bridges that unite citizens of different countries; on the other hand, they can become excuses for communities to live with their backs to each other and, as we have unfortunately seen for the past three years in Ukraine, they can even motivate or serve as an excuse for armed conflicts.Understanding phenomena such as interculturality, multilingualism, and multiple identities is therefore key in the process of European construction. In fact, currently more than half of Europeans (according to Eurobarometer 422) consider linguistic differences to be a problem for cross-border cooperation, and a third believe that cultural differences are a problem. Similarly, approximately half of Europeans believe that social, economic, legal, or administrative differences pose an obstacle to cooperation.

    For these reasons, new ways must be sought to help overcome these difficulties. The conference Beyond Borders: Culture, Language, and Identity in European Integration brought together experts, politicians, academics, and community members to reflect collectively on the following aspects:

    • How broad cultural expressions (from languages, literature, history, tourism, gastronomy, landscape, etc.) can foster mutual understanding and cooperation between neighboring regions.
    • Success (and failure) stories where culture has been a driving force for cross-border cooperation.
    • How different identities can enrich cooperation initiatives.
    • Strategies to promote, question, hybridize, and preserve cultural and linguistic identities in border regions and throughout Europe.
    • The role of languages as a vehicle for communication and cultural exchange.
    • The role of shared cultural heritage. Successful cross-border cultural projects.
    • Educational programs that promote multilingualism, intercultural understanding, and cross-border cultural exchange.
    • How local, regional, and national identities can coexist with a broader European identity.

    Conference programme

    Book of abstracts 

    © Photos by Euro-Institut

  • First conference day: 21 October 2025
    Welcome words

    Robert Martí Marly (Vice-Rector for Strategic Projects and Internationalisation, University of Girona), Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (BIG_Lab/University of Victoria), and Anne Thevenet (Euro-Institut/TEIN)
    Roundtable: Stakeholders of cross-border cooperation in the Catalan

    • Albert Piñeira (director of Casa de la Generalitat a Perpinyà),
    • Bernard Sans (director of Euroregion Pirineus-Mediterrània),
    • Mònica Plana (researcher, UdG)
    • Moderator: Mariona Illamola, UdG
    1st panel: Legal aspects of cross-border cooperation, identity, culture & border

    1. Martina Benedetti Marshall: A Vision of Hope: Shared culture as a catalyst for peace and change
    2. Rahel Alia Müller, and Michael Frey: Combining legal and cultural elements: « Borderwalks » as a
      tool to foster European Integration
    3. Loth Van der Auwermeulen: Cross-border cooperation: Should we conceptualise it as a
      legal matter?
    4. Anna Zilli, Massimiliano De Falco, and Gianluigi Pezzini: Legal Protection and Invisible Discrimination in Cross-Border Work: Between Labour Law and Social Security Coordination
    5. Zsuzsanna Fejes: The Impact of the Amended Schengen Borders Code on Cross-Border Cooperation at the Austrian-Hungarian Border
    2nd panel: Languages and Education

    1. Joanna Kurowska-Pysz: Cross-border socio-cultural competence in bilingual programs in the Polish-Czech borderland
    2. Snizhana Holyk, and Lesya Rohach: English as a Vehicle for Communication and Cultural Exchange: Educational Pathways to Multilingualism and Cross-Border Cooperation
    3. Nicolas Caput: West Flemish, Alsatian, Catalan: dialects or cross-border languages?
    4. Eloise Caporal-Ebersold: Investigating the Promotion of European Identity in Primary Education at a European School in France
    5. Marie Heguy-Urain: Les Enjeux de la Diversité Linguistique pour la Communication des Structures de Coopération Transfrontalière
    6. Maja Melinc Mlekuž: Multilingualism and Identities in the Border Region: Education in Slovene in Italy
    7. Ahmed Bakry, Mika Blanck, and Anna Growe: Redefining the functional cross-border regions around Germany using the linguistic closeness approach
    8. Margot Bonnafous: Strengthening the language skills of cross-border actors – the example of tandem language courses applied to professional practice
    9. Barbara Alicja Jańczak: The ‘Linguistic Borderscape’ as an Analytical Framework for Studying
      Linguistic Hybridity in Border Regions
    10. Daniel Twiringiyimana: The Influence of International Internships Provided by Ubuntu Cultures and Academics on Students in Europe
    11. Flora Bacquelaine, and Margault Coste-Hequet: Case of study. UNIESCAT. The role of culture, language and shared identity to consolidate a cooperation structure
    3rd panel: Identities & cross-border areas

    1. Birte Wassenberg: Regional versus European identity in the Upper Rhine Region: a historical perspective
    2. Liudmyla Prohoniuk: Hybridization and preservation of cultural and linguistic identity in the border regions of Europe: challenges and strategies
    3. Simon Vanlichtervelde: Beyond conviviality in the Franco-Belgian borderland: The contrasted Flemish heritage of French Flanders
    4th panel: Cross-border area & development

    1. Jordana de Souza Cavalcante, and Breno Angelo Cazzaro Menini: Construction of Regional Identities in Cross-Border Cooperation of Wine Tourism in Catalonia and Roussillon
    2. Pedro Albuquerque: Interactions, Interconnections and Border complicities in the Lower Guadiana Basin (Portugal – Spain): a holistic approach
    3. Hans Wevers: Social entrepreneurship and European integration – The essence of border spanning social entrepreneurial ecosystems
    4. Sofie Moresi, Jan Lucas, Pim Mertens, and Vincent Pijnenburg: Working on wellbeing across national borders. An euregional analysis of conceptual frameworks, policies, and collaboration in this area
    Plenary conclusions and closure

    Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (BIG_Lab/University of Victoria), and Anne Thevenet (Euro-Institut/TEIN)

  • Second conference day: 22 October 2025
    Keynote presentation

    Arzu Burcu Tuner, Programme Manager. Language Policy, Education Department, DGII-Directorate for Democracy, Council of Europe
    1st panel: Languages and Education

    1. Yuliia Fetko, and Yaroslav Lazur: The role of interlingual communication in the activities of local authorities in the field of cross-border cooperation
    2. Bernard Reitel: Dis/continuité linguistique sur les frontières nord de la France : le flamand occidental, une revitalisation grâce à l’intégration transfrontalière ?
    3. M. V. Menzhul, and I. Fetko Yuliia: Language skills of residents of border areas and labor mobility
    2nd panel: Identities & cross-border areas

    1. Noriko Suzuki: La reconstruction de l’identité européenne pour les Britanniques après le Brexit
    2.  Xabier Orbegozo, Maitena Poelemans de Lara, and Iban Larrandaburu: Basque Territorial Identity: A Driver for Cross-Border Territorial Development in the Western Pyrenees
    3rd panel: Geography & Planning

    1. Ondrej Elbel: Border Twin Villages: Exploring the Factors of Cooperation in the Czech-Polish Borderlands
    2. Tom Becker: Soil and story: cross-border reflections on land take and local identity
      in the Greater Region
    3. Emanuele Sala, and Fabienne Leloup: European (Cross-)Border Cities: The Role of City Representation Offices in Identity Construction
    4. Lukas Novotny: Shared Industrial Heritage as a Catalyst for Community Building: Evaluating Czech-German Cooperation in the Montanregion Erzgebirge
    5th panel: (Inter)culturality

    1. Xavier Bernard Sans: APC – Cultural Call of the Euroregion Pyrenees-Mediterranean: Building Shared Cultural Space Beyond Borders
    2. Anne Thevenet: Intercultural competence: a powerful resource to overcome borders? – Experiences from the Upper Rhine Region
    3. Beate Caesar, Jonas Pauly, Tom Becker, Leah Honecker, Karina
      Pallagst, and Hélène Rouchet: Planning cultural exchange across borders – first steps towards a
      common comprehension of planning paradigms in the Greater Region?
    4. Niklas Schulz: The Potential of Third Places in Cultural Cross-Border Cooperation. Perspectives from three European borderlands
    General conclusions and closure

    Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (BIG_Lab/University of Victoria)

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