WHAT

Greater Copenhagen & Skåne Committee (GCSC) is the name of the renewed Öresund cooperation, which started when the Öresund Committee was merged with Danish Greater Copenhagen in 2016. The main aim of the new construction is to support regional political collaboration in the Öresund region and to contribute to sustainable growth and employment in the territory. In greater detail, the Copenhagen & Skåne Committee’s approach mainly consists of:

• Investing in common global marketing of the region to improve its international competitiveness and visibility;
• Building strong international infrastructures;
• Boosting sustainable growth and employment in the region by removing legal and administrative cross-border obstacles.

WHERE

The Öresund region, which encompasses the Scania region (‘Skåne’) on the Swedish side; and the Capital Region of Denmark (‘Region Hovedstaden’) and Region Zealand (‘Region Sjælland’) on the Danish side.

Source: Easing legal and administrative obstacles in EU borders – Case Study No.2, page 10.

HOW

From a legal perspective, the Greater Copenhagen & Skåne Committee is a political organisation composed of Danish and Swedish representatives from the area at local level (mainly the municipalities of the region).The committee is supported by a Secretariat in charge of implementing the Committee’s strategy, which also hosts the Secretariat of the Interreg IVA Oresund programme (ERDF allocation amounts to EUR 127,5 mil). Beyond this funding, the Oresund’s initiatives are mainly supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers and local and regional authorities.

RESULTS

Economic growth in the Öresund region is partly attributed to long-standing cooperation between the two countries which contributes to alleviating some of the cross-border barriers affecting the territory. Such collaboration results in better conditions for cross-border workers who can benefit from harmonised systems for vocational rehabilitation, and unemployment and income insurance. The Øresund bridge, built in 2000, is further proof of the success of this cooperation as it has considerably improved accessibility between the south of Sweden and Greater Copenhagen and also has generated an additional 6 billion EUR since its opening.

Additional information is available here:

https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/obstacle_border/2_labour_mobility.pdf

https://www.oresundskomiteen.org/greater-copenhagen-and-skane-commitee/

https://www.greatercph.com/about

https://www.oecd.org/cfe/regionaldevelopment/publicationsdocuments/Oresund.pdf