The Regulation supports the development of border regions, home to over 150 million EU citizens, by introducing a standard procedure to identify and resolve cross-border obstacles that make it difficult for citizens and businesses to benefit from full EU integration. Citizens, businesses, and public administrations in these regions face challenges linked to different technical standards, administrative procedures, and legal frameworks, at both sides of the borders. This affects the deployment of cross-border infrastructure or public services projects, such as access to healthcare and emergency services, disaster response coordination, or joint infrastructure projects. Addressing these barriers will improve the functioning of the EU Single Market and provide better access to services and economic opportunities for citizens and businesses.
The Regulation includes the possibility to establish Cross-Border Coordination Points, a new service which will assess requests from local stakeholders on potential obstacles, and act as a liaison with the national authorities to address them. Interested parties will receive a formal response explaining whether and how an obstacle can be resolved.
After an obstacle is assessed and recognised, Member States and regions can use the Cross-Border Facilitation Tool, a voluntary standard procedure designed to solve administrative and legal obstacles. While each request must be answered to, the decision on whether or not to resolve an obstacle remains the prerogative of the competent national authorities.
The Commission will also set up a public register of obstacles, collecting data from Member States on cross-border issues at land and sea borders. This register will give greater visibility to these obstacles and enable the Commission to support Member States in resolving them through the sharing of information and knowledge.
Next steps
The Parliament and the Council will formally adopt the agreement reached during the trilogue negotiations and the Regulation will enter into force early next year.
Background
On 12 December 2023, the Commission adopted its amended proposal for a Regulation facilitating cross-border solutions. This proposal builds on past initiatives to address cross-border challenges.
In 2021, the Commission published the report “EU Border Regions: Living labs of European Integration”, reflecting on lessons learnt during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2018, the Commission launched b-solutions, an innovative and temporary initiative providing legal support to public authorities in cross-border regions to identify the root causes of legal or administrative obstacles and to explore possible solutions. The experience of the b-solutions has been instrumental to analyse and identify legal and administrative cross-border obstacles and has shown that in more than one third of the obstacles identified, a new legal tool, established at EU level, could have been used to resolve these obstacles.
Source: https://shorturl.at/bSrnR