A new ESPON project, "Interregional relations in Europe" (IRiE) launched yesterday. The general objective of the project is to analyze inter-regional flows, design actions that reduce barriers and include information on flows within the regional Smart Specialization Strategies. Different types of emergency scenarios, such as the COVID-19 pandemic will be analyzed.

The municipality of Sintra (PT) shared with ESPON their actions and initiatives in order to support citizens and local businesses during the crisis. 

Financial instruments will continue to play a prominent role in EU policy post-2020 under both EU Cohesion policy and the proposed

Many border areas are characterised as peripheral regions in their domestic context, which is challenging affordable public service provision.

Border towns and twin cities provide a unique environment for cross-border public service provision (CPS). Due to close vicinity border towns function in many ways as a single functional area, for example as a single labour market or service area for leisure. Different examples identified by the ESPON project Cross-border Public Services illustrate the variety of policy fields for which CPS could be provided in these specific territories.

In the eye of the current crisis, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic it became evident that cross border cooperation is important not only for the border areas but to ensure an efficient reaction to new territorial challenges. National and European level authorities should pave the way for CPS and according to the findings of the ESPON project Cross border Public Services (CPS) Interreg is among the most important access points for EU level support to CPS development.

Financial instruments (FIs) represent a small but increasing and high-profile proportion of programme resources under the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). Uptake of FIs under ESIF programmes has roughly doubled since the 2007-13 programming period. According to the ESPON project, Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion findings increasing emphasis on financial instruments under the Structural Funds has a number of implications for territorial cohesion

People in regions with high levels of income but a negative outlook are probably more pessimistic than people in regions with lower levels of income but positive future perspectives due to better performance. The ESPON project ETRF provided a map that compares the value of each region to its respective national average. Thresholds have been set for both dimensions resulting in three classes for each dimension (below, around, above national average) and consequently in nine groups

The Alpine region has a long-standing experience in territorial cooperation that goes back at least to the 1970s.  This cooperation is implemented through different EU and national instruments and cross-border programmes for various issues of regional policy and spatial development. The ESPON project Alps 2050 provided an interesting analysis for the common future development of the area with a projection towards 2050.

https://www.poctefa.euThe COVID19 pandemic will have both sanitary and territorial impacts but regions and cities won’t be hit with the same intensity. ESPON is interested in pooling local experiences and territorial policy responses. And supports actively other European Research Associations to collect scientific evidence on the impact of CORVID19.