Based on the analysis of central challenges of practical cross-border governance, the article - published in the International Public Administration Review (13-2), examines the question, whether the application of the principle of mutual recognition, initially developed for the free movement of goods in the non-harmonized area, could provide a basis for substantial improvement in European cross-border cooperation. Four fields of application are designed, allowing for a new quality of transnational administrative cooperation and a new understanding of the laboratory role that cross-border territories might play both for the European Administrative Space (EAS) and further European integration.

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