As a practitioner of cross-border cooperation, you are probably facing some obstacles that hinder the smooth implementation of projects in your area. We all know it: a law or an administrative custom of your neighbouring country prevents the realisation of one aspect of an endeavour which would favour your city or your region and its citizens.

DG REGIO and the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) offer the possibility to find a solution to your concrete obstacle – and by doing so you can contribute to pave the way for innovative policies to foster a more and better connected European Union.

Thanks to the b-solutions initiative, AEBR and DG REGIO continue to investigate the challenges that border regions and cities face when interacting with their neighbouring country, and explore new approaches to realise common projects across national borders. To do so, in the coming days AEBR will open a new call under b-solutions to identify further cases where a legal or administrative obstacle hampers cooperation amongst border regions.

The new call of b-solutions intends to bring forward the initiative’s general aim of exploring and promoting sustainable methods to resolve border obstacles of a legal and/or administrative nature along EU internal land borders. Yet, with the new endeavour AEBR and DG REGIO offer a more immediate support to local authorities: the aim is to assist CBC practitioners in dealing with concrete cases and to provide individual and direct guidance.

Within the new call, 35 applicants will be attributed expert support to analyse identified obstacles and outline a legal framework to envisage possible solutions.

Participants will receive consulting services, will be able to foster their projects of cooperation and share them with the neighbouring region, and will contribute to forge policy recommendations for European integration.

Public bodies governing at the local, regional or national level can participate in the call, as well as cross-border entities with legal personality, also if they are not public bodies (EGTCs, Euroregions and similar CB structures). The applicant can involve a co-applicant from the other side(s) of the border, but this is not a prerequisite.

The call will be open soon and will remain open for 30 days.

The implementation of the projects under the second call will span for 4 months, approximately from early March 2019 to the end of June 2019.

With b-solutions, DG REGIO and AEBR want to praise projects showing a commitment in coordinating with neighbouring public authorities beyond national boundaries. For participants, b-solutions is a great chance to tackle existing obstacles thanks to the support from the European Commission. In addition, the novelty of this pilot initiative lies in the unique opportunity to contribute to shaping European integration. The network and the expertise of AEBR are at disposal for the participants to ensure the success of the initiative.

Share the obstacle you face: make of a concrete problem a European solution!

For more information on b-solutions, please visit the website https://www.b-solutionsproject.com/. The latest updates will be published on this platform.