The Öresund Region: Building a Cross-Border Metropolis Across the Sound

initiatives separately. However, tourism initiatives are the ones that lent themselves to truly joint projects based on common goals. For example, Kent and Nord-Pas de Calais have developed a large scale Network of Transfrontier Tourism Information and a joint Region Transmanche Tourism Marketing Program. With this exception, other programs in the Transmanche Region faced difficulties in developing joint projects that go beyond strategic cooperation or information exchange to establish cooperation on a detailed operational basis. Cooperation is the basis of cross-border initiatives but it often lacks the integrity that might contribute to trust relations and institutional thickness. One positive note is that cross-sea cooperation has fostered a relatively flexible and dynamic approach to the spaces associated with cross-border programs in which new alliances can be quickly forged and changed. However, the changeable nature of cross-border alliances is strongly driven by local authority self-interest and funding structures and this has significant implications for the cooperative integrity of transfrontier political space.

2.3 The Öresund Region: Building a Cross-Border Metropolis

combination that was completed in 2000 was taken by central governments, in 1991, reflecting the scale of the project as well as the scale of its impact that goes beyond producing purely local benefits. On the other hand, the decision to establish a CBR was clearly informed and inspired by the plan of building the land-link, and its subsequent realisation. This is similar to what happened in the Transmanche region between the UK and France that was also inspired by the desire to cope with the expected newly emerging interdependencies between the areas arising from the completion of the Channel Tunnel and to exploit subsequent opportunities and threats (Church and Reid 1999). Hence, the case provides interesting material to study the impact of major infrastructural investments on cross-border cooperation and institution-building activity.

2.3.1 History

The history of the Öresund Region has to be located in the facilitating context of Scandinavian CBC that has long been promoted by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The emergence of this specific CBR can be seen as a subsequent thickening of cooperation that was not necessarily led by one single focal cross-border actor, such as in the EUREGIO. Rather, we can observe a succession of initiatives in various sectors, a pattern described as

‘governance without government’ in an OECD report (2003).

The Öresund Committee that serves as a core governance institution for the Öresund region was established in 1993 by local and regional authorities, together with the national authorities, in the areas of Greater Copenhagen (Denmark) and Scania in Southern Sweden. It is linked with an initiative called Öresund Territorial Employment Pact that was established by the local metropolitan authorities in collaboration with the national authorities as an experimental plan to pursue employment policies across national borders.

The EU Interreg programme has also been implemented in the region since the early 1990s.

On July 1, 2000, a major 12km bridge across the Sound between Denmark and Sweden was opened, introducing a new dimension for cross-border economic cooperation and daily life at a cost of 2.4 billion EUR. This was on the basis of a 1991 decision of the Danish and Swedish governments.

The investment has been accompanied by a series of additional infrastructural investments, adding up to 16.8 billion EUR, such as new mini-metro, intra-urban motorways, railroads, an airport railroad station, a new university, and large scale urbanization (Öresund 2004).

2.3.2 Socio-economic background

The Öresund Region is an advanced urban agglomeration encompassing the Danish capital of Copenhagen and the Southern Swedish City of Malmo.

It comprises approx. 3.5 million inhabitants, with two thirds on the Danish side and one-third on the Swedish side. The Öresund region consists of all of Skåne on the Swedish side of the Sound, and on the Danish side of the Danish islands Zealand, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm. The largest city is Copenhagen with a population of about a half million of inhabitants. Malmö, on the Swedish side, is the third largest city of Sweden and has about 250,000 inhabitants. In terms of language, Danish and Swedish are similar, and hence, there are few language-related communication difficulties.

Economically, both parts of the regions are heavily reliant on the service sector, and feature a relatively high concentration of knowledge-intensive activities. Zealand and Skåne are well-endowed with a wide spectrum of knowledge-based industries; the former is strong in a number of pharmaceuticals, as well as food processing, software, design and environment technologies, and the latter shows increasingly good performance in IT, telecommunications, biotechnology and research. At the

same time, the Öresund Region nurtures a specialised labour force by hosting 20 universities and 130,000 students (OECD 2003). As to economic difference between the territories, GDP per capita is higher in Copenhagen, with the Swedish part being more dependent on public sector service employment.

2.3.3 Organisational set-up and activities

The Öresund region has three core bodies: the Committee, the Commis-sion and a secretariat. The Öresund Committee is comprised of represen-tatives of both municipal and regional authorities a pattern typical for the Scandinavian ‘flavour’ of cross-border co-operation.^{8 )} In this case, the representatives of the two major urban centres play a major role involved in the cooperation, Copenhagen and Malmo. The Committee is in a sense the parliament of the Öresund region; it consists of 32 politicians, appointed by the member authorities. In addition, the central governments appoint representatives on each side as observers.

The Öresund Commission is composed by civil servants appointed by the Öresund Committee. In addition, the Swedish and Danish governments are represented by two civil servants each. The Öresund Commission’s remit is to prepare working programmes and budget proposals for the Committee, and is responsible for carrying out the Committee’s decisions. The Öresund Committee’s secretariat administers the measures, acts as information and contact points and runs the day-to-day business of the Öresund Region.

Financing is provided by two sources: a membership fee and contributions by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Areas of activity of the Öresund Region

8) In Scandinavia, CBC has been promoted since the 1950s when the Nordic Council was founded. The ‘Treaty of Co-operation between Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden’ (Treaty of Helsingfors) in 1962 provided a basis for cooperation in legal, cultural, social, economic, transport and environmental matters (Malchus 1986: 44).

target a variety of policy areas, including research, environment, culture and education, communication, infrastructure, human resources and international marketing.

The bodies responsible for Interreg are formally separate from these bodies, but are practically partly overlapping. Hence, the Steering Committee is composed of politicians from the member organizations of the Öresund Committee, the Greater Copenhagen Authority, Associations of Municipalities, representatives from environmental authorities as well as cross-border organizations. A Working Group, comprised of civil servants, prepares the decisions of the Steering Committee.

As mentioned above, the Öresund Region is also linked through a Territorial Employment Pact, a set of employment measures with the following pillars: economic growth and job creation, social inclusion and ecological sustainability. A detailed action planned has been created to purse this set of cross-border economic policy measures. Among the concrete activities launched are: an Öresund Labor market Council, and Öresund University (a network of 15 Universities), Medicon Valley Academy, and others.⁹⁾

An OECD report notes a certain degree of institutional fragmentation with respect to CBC in the Öresund region, pointing to the proliferation of different bodies and the lack of a central decision-making instance for cross-border matters (OECD 2003).

2.3.4 Evaluation: towards a new cross-border metropolis

Despite the earlier launch of various co-operation initiatives, the Öresund Region has received a major boost through the recent completion of a major rail and road link across its sea-border, with many initiatives launched in anticipation. A sea-border constitutes a far higher level of 9) www.oresund.com/oresund/creation/territorial.htm#Conceptual

obstacles to cross-border interactions than a land-border. This had been seen as one of the reasons for the low level of integration across this area although both sides have long belonged to the EU.

For the metropolitan authorities involved, the objective is to exploit the economies of scale and scope as well as more intangible synergies emerging from growing cross-border integration to be stimulated by the link. The expectation is to become a more competitive and dynamic location in the wider trans-continental context of the European urban centres.

Although further evidence has to be awaited, an OECD report states that even the building of a land-link does not however automatically involve closer integration of the two national territories involved and that integration between the Danish and Swedish parts of Öresund is progressing rather slowly (OECD 2003). It is argued that education and research policy could provide a ‘soft’ infrastructure for integration and that universities could be better connected with entrepreneurial activities. As it is argued, social capital is abundant in the two-sub regions but does not presently cross the strait.

Hence it suggests policies to expand ‘soft infrastructures’, according to the

‘light institution’ approach followed by the two governments, but argues that it needs to better integrate the representatives of the private sector especially if public/private partnerships are expected to become a backbone of the functional region.

In light of other EU CBC experiences, the involvement of the private sector would be a relative rarity. An awakening interest of private sector actors, however, could indicate that a CBC project has finally succeeded in establishing a degree of cross-border integration that is seen as ‘worth governing’ by private sector actors. More generally, the example of the Öresund Region shows that the building of ‘hard’ infrastructural links alone will not automatically be conducive to cross-border integration on an economic and institutional level.