The annual conference of TEIN was held in Maastricht on 26 and 27 September 2024. Organised by ITEM with the support of BIG-21st Century Borders, and held at the EIPA premises, the conference brought together over 70 participants, including 13 TEIN members, on the theme « The future of cross-border cooperation and mobility: Horizontal integration and beyond ».

These two extremely rich and intense days began with a discussion on the future of cohesion policy, with contributions from Karl-Heinz Lambertz, High-level working group on future of cohesion policy, Ricardo Ferreira, DG REGIO, Bram de Kort, Director Interreg Flanders-The Netherlands and Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, Jean Monnet Chair, European Union Policy and Governance, University of Victoria.

The discussions continued with a presentation of the work carried out by several TEIN members – Joanna Kurowska-Pysz, WSB University; Gyula Ocskay, CESCI; Clarisse Klauber, Euro-Institut and Susanne Sivonen, ITEM – on an impact analysis of the FCBS (Facilitating Cross-Border Solutions in the European border regions), a European Commission proposal currently under discussion within the Council to help resolve obstacles in cross-border regions.

The afternoon was then given over to aspects of functional cross-border cooperation and the presentation of the results of a study on public opinion regarding European integration in the light of the 2024 European Parliament elections.

The following day, Sebastian Gröning-von Thüna, from the German Federal Foreign Office, shared his vision of cooperation with the participants, who then had the opportunity to take the discussions further in various workshops on border regions in national and European policies, European integration through the prism of language and culture, cross-border mobility and the labour market, and cross-border education.

Stay tuned: presentations and summaries will soon be available on the website, and a publication is also in preparation. The richness of these two days can thus be passed on!