ITEM Annual Conference 2023: Infrastructure and mobility: ‘Strong connections with neighbouring countries towards a sustainable and liveable society across the border’

Current European developments on energy transition and hydrogen show that for impactful solutions, cross-border cooperation between different layers of government is a condition. Well-functioning European transport corridors are essential for the success of a sustainable and liveable society. By definition, corridors are transcending borders and focus on issues such as pipelines, ports (hydrogen) and rail.

Within corridors are subareas that have often already organised themselves across borders, such as Benelux, Eurodelta, La Grande Région, the Dutch-Flemish cooperation with the initiation of a ‘cross-border coordination point’.

Border transcending objectives of infrastructure and mobility can only be achieved if cross-border cooperation is also actively used. Europe, member states and European regions can then work together to achieve impactful cross-border solutions and applications. How can identifying border effects at the start of new developments increase impact in practice? Forming structural substantive coalitions seems to be the future. How do cross-border governance structures deal with this? In what way can the use of instruments be an important catalyst to achieve border transcending objectives?

The following themes are covered in the programme:

• European integration: how to do it? Working together on “Horizontal integration”.

• Border effects within border transcending corridors: relevance of scale, border effects and cross-border cooperation.

• Transcending border en cross-border hand in hand: “Energy hubs of the future”.

• ITEM in a cross-border society: ITEM Border Effects Report 2023.

• ITEM monitoring: Broad prosperity, every region counts; so does the border region!

The event will run from 10:00 - 17:00 on the 17th of November 2023.

Registrations are open!