Interreg

For the first time in this project, the provinces, regions and Kreise / Kreisfreie Stadt in the EUREGIO sub-region of East Netherlands (in this case the provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland as far as the Twente and Achterhoek regions are concerned) and the Münsterland will cooperate with the assistance of the Bezirksregierung Münster in a mutually agreed form. The partners, through their political representatives, signed the ‘Memorandum Münsterland – Oost-Nederland’ on 14 December 2018.

The overall objective of the MoU is to strengthen the nationally structured border region in the EUREGIO area mentioned above, which is disadvantaged in various areas (e.g. the ‘accesability’ of the cross-border labour market, lack of or no knowledge of the neighbouring language, lack of recognition of qualifications in the neighbouring country, shortcomings in urban and regional transport, obstacles in cross-border transport) by virtue of its geographical situation alone (national periphery, cross-border restricted environment).

This objective is to be achieved through the effective and coordinated implementation of specific cross-border measures and individual projects. To this end, taking into account the EUREGIO 2030 strategy, the memorandum partners have defined five thematic areas (education, labour market, economy, infrastructure, monitoring / border statistics) and agreed on actions to be translated into 17 concrete measures within the framework of the project.

The MoU process is centrally steered by a coordination point that the MoU partners intend to host at EUREGIO. The task of this coordination point is to manage and coordinate the planned measures centrally and to monitor and continuously evaluate the progress of the entire project. The 17 measures themselves are not part of the project application. They are implemented independently and separately.