Functional areas in the EU

Functional areas in the EU

Crossing administrative boundaries for green transition and sustainable development

About

About

THE PROJECT

Starting from the understanding that functional area approaches in the EU need to be strengthened and the advantages that they trigger can no longer remain untapped, the European Commission and the World Bank Group signed an administration agreement to improve functional area approaches in the EU. Both institutions have as priorities to reduce poverty and social exclusion and create competitive and sustainable economies, in consequence, direct interaction is beneficial to them and to the beneficiary countries. As such, the functional areas in the EU, crossing administrative boundaries for green transition and sustainable development project is of utmost importance for the future of territorial development in the EU.

Its main objective is to enhance the capacity of participating functional areas to plan and finance investments and services across jurisdictional boundaries for sustainable development.

Overall, this transactional exercise focuses on both urban and non-urban functional areas, with the aim to:

  1. offer support in addressing key development challenges;
  2. offer support in preparing for the 2021-2027 Programming Period;
  3. disseminate the key lessons learned, as well as tools and approaches developed within the project to other functional areas;
  4. develop a toolkit that other functional areas could use to strengthen their territorial approaches;
  5. organise knowledge exchange events in order to transfer findings and workable solutions to other interested functional areas in the EU.

Why Functional Areas?

Why Functional Areas?

Development dynamics rarely follow neat administrative boundaries. It can trigger positive spillover effects if aligned with existing economic flows into such areas.

The EU cohesion policy encourages the identification of and support to existing functional areas and the formation of territorial cooperation.

The role of the project is to enhance coordination and cooperation across administrative boundaries and develop an EU toolkit to overcome fragmentation.

Meet the functional areas

Meet the functional areas

You can interact with the pins on the map to see more details about the functional areas.

The journey

The journey

THE TWELVE FUNCTIONAL AREAS FROM SEVEN EU COUNTRIES

The twelve functional areas were selected out of a pool of fifty functional areas from eight member states that applied to be part of the project. This selection contains both more mature and incipient functional areas, as well as urban and non-urban functional areas.