The Transmanche Region

In this sense, the EUREGIO can be seen as the emergence of a new collective actor, based on a ‘regional’ mobilisation of some 100 local authority members. This process of mobilisation was predicated upon three sets of conditions. First, the EUREGIO mobilisation was facilitated by favourable contextual conditions provided by higher-level authorities such as the European Commission as well as the German and Dutch national authorities. Second, the EUREGIO’s piecemeal acquisition of a capacity to act was decisively rooted in the policy entrepreneurship of the secretariat.

The secretariat, qua organisation, pursued a strategy of organisational growth by assuring a steadily growing inflow of resources both from local and supra-local public authorities. Third, this strategy was predicated upon the successful stabilisation of supportive network relationships between public both on the local and supralocal levels, in particular the insertion of the EUREGIO into the framework of the implementation of the EU Interreg programme.

received funding from INTEREG I. In 1991, Kent and Nord-Pas de Calais also signed a joint declaration with the Belgian regional governments of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels-Capital to form a Transmanche Euroregion.

However, the Transmanche Region maintains its separate identity within the larger Euroregion. The Euroregion takes a more strategic framework for development and transport but it shares certain political goals with the Transmanche Region in being another vehicle through which to lobby the EC. What is noteworthy is the willingness of Kent and Nord-Pas de Calais to adopt a flexible approach in constructing cross-border alliances.

Cooperation between Kent and Nord-Pas de Calais was further developed in 1995 when they were one of four cooperative groupings involving UK regions to receive INTERREG II funds. The majority of INTERREG funds have been focused on the East Kent area and the coastal towns. Between 1992 and 1996, over 63% of INTERREG expenditure in the Transmanche Region went on the two subprograms of land management and the environment, and tourism development. Other projects supported were related to transport and infrastructure, economic development and education and training.

2.2.2 Socio-economic profile

The Transmanche Region is composed of two regions of unequal weight.

The County of Kent has a population of approximately 1.33 million and is primarily responsible for the provision of public services to the county residents. In contrast, the Nord-Pas Calais region has a population of about 4 million and commands a sizable economic power. Although both Kent and Nord-Pas Calais have a large service sector, Nord-Pas Calais has a strong textile industry and is also well known for its agri-food business.⁵⁾ In contrast, Kent County’s economy depends more on the tertiary sector such as 5) www.cr-npdc.fr/

public services, finance and business, manufacturing and tourism related activities.⁶⁾

Figure 5.2 Arc Manche

6) www.kent.gov.uk/

2.2.3 Organization and activities

Cooperation between Kent and Nord-Pas Calais was largely motivated by two factors. One was the need for restructuring of port related activities because of the construction of Channel Tunnel and the other was the need to adjust and exploit economic integration in Europe. Increased mobility of capital and inter-regional competition for European funds constituted another reason for cross-border cooperation. The Transmanche Development Program is primarily determined by Kent County and Nord-Pas Calais Regional Council but also affected by diverse actors including European Council, national governments and other local organizations.

2.2.4 Complication by the proliferation of multiple cross-sea initiatives in the channel

Stimulated by European integration, similar cross-border initiatives were proliferated in the English Channel around the early 1990s. The first one is the Rives-Manche region including French Departments of Seine-maritime and Somme and East Susses, which later on obtained INTERREG funds.

The French cities of Le Havre and Rouen along with Caen and the English urban authorities of Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and the Poole formed a cross-border grouping called the Transmanche Metropole, which also sought INTERREG funds. Variety is further enhanced by the emergence of the new and spatially extended transfrontier region, the Arc Manche, which overlaps the above-mentioned initiatives. The Arc Manche is a cooperative network of 12 authorities formally established in 1996 with the signing of the letter of intent. It included the five French regions of Bretagne, Basse Nordmandie, Haute Normandie, Picardi and Nord-Pas de Calais, the English unitary authority of the Isle Wight, and the five counties of Kent, East Susses, West Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset. The English counties of Essex, Cornwall and Devon participate as observers. This network aims to

obtain recognition of the specificity of the Channel area by the EU, develop a joint future of the area, achieve improved integration of the Channel coastal regions within Europe, enhance the local and regional economies, and propose a framework for cooperation between our regions on common interest. The Arc Manche was based in part on the view that a larger grouping might be able to achieve more than the existing groupings of two or three authorities, particularly in relation to influencing European policy.

The organizational structure for Arc Manche includes an annual committee of presidents, a coordinating group and four transnational working groups to study specific issues in strategic and spatial planning, transportation and communication, environment and coasts, and economic development and employment. Since 1995, the Arc Manche has relied on inputs of mainly officer time from the member authorities and by late 1997 had yet to establish a source of funding to support individual projects. Despite the problems of Arc Manche, it represented a new political space, which, along with other cross-Channel initiatives, has contributed to a new set of territorial dynamics. The diversity of cross-border initiatives across the Channel reflects an increasingly flexible approach being taken by local government to transnational political space in which territorial structures are regularly reordered in the pursuit of funds and effective organizational arrangements. However, the changeable nature of cross-border spaces suggests that to some degree they are based on imaginary spaces envisioned by politicians.

2.2.5 Evaluation

The problems of building cross-border initiatives in the Transmanche Region include the lack of genuine joint cooperative working on an operational basis. Often the English and French authorities complete very similar projects such as environmental improvements but work on these

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