The EGTC Award was handed in 2022 to the Italian-Slovenian EGTC GO and the Slovak-Hungarian Pons Danubii EGTC

The EGTC Platform established in 2011 by the Committee of the Regions held its annual meeting in Liberec, Czechia on 24 and 25 November this year. The meeting was hosted by Liberec Region and the tri-national Euroregion Neisse-Nisa-Nysa.

The Committee of the Regions organises the meetings of the European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation annually – on changing sites. In 2022, it was the city of Liberec, in Czechia hosting the event in the Golden Lion Hotel. The participants had a chance to participate in two site visits and a seminar. On the first day, the organisers invited the participants to Prague to a site visit which was followed by a ceremonial dinner in the historic building of the cellar of the City Hall in Liberec. This was the venue where the EGTC Award was handed to the EGTC GO for their cross-border integrated territorial investment (ITI) in the field of health care; and the Honourable Mention certificate to the Pons Danubii EGTC for their regional bike sharing system called ‘Kombibike’. Both projects were presented during the second day’s seminar beside further exemplary projects, i.e. the ‘Cross-Border Public Transport’ project of the ESPON programme, the Polish-Czech emergency cooperation, the joint investment plan of the cross-border region of North Portugal and Province of Galicia in Spain, the youth projects of the Austrian-Italian and of the French-Spanish borders. The most recently registered grouping, the Belgian French Natural Park European Planes Scarpe Escaut was also introduced.

Before the project presentations, the meeting was greeted by Martin Půta, the president of Liberec Region, Mr Stephan Meyer, the president of Görlitz Region, Mr Piotr Roman, Mayor of Boleslawiec (PL) (all of them co-presiding the euroregion) and Mr Pavel Branda, the chair of the CoR’s interregional group on cross-border cooperation. Subsequently, a round-table discussion was moderated by Gyula Ocskay, secretary general of CESCI on the greatest challenges to and the future perspectives of cross-border cooperation within the EU. The participants of the discussion were Mr Dirk Peters legal expert of the European Commission, Jan Pikna, expert of the Ministry of Regional Development of Czechia, Mr Philippe Voiry, ambassador for intergovernmental commissions and cross-border cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, and Mr Martín Guillermo-Ramírez secretary general of the Association of European Border Regions.

In the afternoon of the second day, the hosts of the event organised a study tour on the territory of the Euroregion. The participants had the opportunity to enjoy the service of the cross-border railway crossing both the Czech-Polish and the Polish-German borders; to visit the tri-border meeting point along the River Elbe-Leba; and to get to know the cross-border projects of the Fire Station at Hrádek. The guests might have observed that the tri-border area was well integrated and the level of cooperation is high. The Euroregion is worth being visited, consequently, the next study tour of CESCI’s members will be organised to this region in 2023.