With the Madrid Agreement of 1980, the Council of Europe promoted cross-border cooperation between municipalities and regional authorities. The aim was to conclude agreements and conventions in accordance with each country's own constitutional regulations, defining cross-border cooperation as a joint project aimed at strengthening and promoting neighbourhood relations between municipalities or regional authorities dependent on two or more contracting parties, as well as the conclusion of useful agreements and conventions serving this purpose.
With this thematic context, the seminar "European border regions: Laboratory for the social dialogue for people and different cultures", held by MCL / EFAL (Movimento Cristiano Lavoratori / Ente Nazionale per la Formazione e l'AddestramentodeiLavoratori) in Zara, Croatia, from May 26th to 28th 2017. 53 representatives of workers' organisations from Italy, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, FYR Macedonia and Slovenia took part. The seminar was supported by EZA and the European Union.
During the seminar, the topic of European cross-border regions was discussed. Particular attention was paid to Austria/Italy/Croatia or the Alps/Adria region.
Several speakers have highlighted the different experiences made at local level regarding the position of workers and social cohesion and cooperation.
There was also a speech by Isidoro Gottardo, adviser to the Italian Foreign Minister, who referred to the role of the regions and their prime ministers in overcoming divisions.
Local development can undoubtedly create greater social cohesion. One risk, however, is the excessive bureaucracy that prevents the problems from being resolved quickly. For example, measures to privatise the economies of the Western Balkan countries fail to respect social dialogue and solidarity at various levels and prevent full employment and economic development. The seminar concluded that the EU must do its utmost not to disappoint the expectations of the citizens of the Western Balkans who hope for European integration.
The EU countries need the countries of the Western Balkans in the European Union even after Brexit. There has been much talk about the different forms of populism and about nationalism, which seems to be reappearing.
In addition, all the speakers in the various reports have highlighted the importance of youth policy and expressed their concern about the issue of the brain drain of many young graduates.
The role of inter-religious dialogue was also discussed. This is helpful in promoting democracy, which must be strengthened at all levels in view of its fragility.
The central theme of the last day of the seminar was the problem of poverty. It became clear that only together we can fight the economic and social differences in society. Without social dialogue, there can be no social peace in Europe. This requires rediscovering the fundamental idea of peace and the European common good, which is the foundation of the European institutions and has promoted their development.
The central position of the sea area in this area, which is fundamental for the transport and socio-economic processes between Italy and Croatia; the historical maritime trade relations; the common goods in terms of natural areas and cultural heritage; the joint weighting given to industries exploiting natural marine resources shows how important the blue and green economy is for sustainable regional growth in the cooperation area, which was discussed at the seminar in Zara. These problems are at the heart of the strategic actions of the cross-border cooperation programme between Italy and Croatia, whose guiding principle is: "to increase prosperity in the area and to promote "blue" growth prospects by stimulating the appropriate cross-border partnerships for real, achievable change". This point was discussed towards the end of the seminar.
Operational projects were identified which are to be implemented using a bottom-up approach (from the bottom to the top) and strategic projects which were selected using a top-down approach (from the top to the bottom) and their strategic characteristics. These projects are costly, have a wide geographical scope within the partnership and have specific technical and institutional powers. All this takes into account the European strategy and the joint actions listed below, which will be further elaborated in operational proposals:
- to achieve as many concrete results as possible through the contributions;
- to strengthen the complementarity with other actions financed by the EU aimed at strengthening the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the regions covered by the programme;
- to focus the contributions on the defined priorities of the "Europe 2020" strategy (smart, sustainable and inclusive growth);
- contribute to the implementation of the EU's strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion and the integrated marine policy;
- to continue and strengthen cooperation between the institutions, organisations and networks established in the previous planning.