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Drawing on fieldwork research conducted mainly between 2007 and 2013 in Italy, Slovenia and Belgium and their local/regional authorities, this chapter aims to investigate whether cross-border entities share the view of governance as a (network) multi-level mode where power and decision making are dispersed among multi-actors through negotiation processes. It will provide specific examples of the emergence of a ‘transnational’ kind of governance in the cross-border territory between Italy and Slovenia. It will analyze the relationship which links together these two states, their SNAs (Italian regions and Slovenian municipalities), and the EU level, with a view to assessing whether these states have lost some of their prerogatives, or conversely, agree to share some responsibilities with their SNAs. Furthermore, under investigation will be the kind of governance that can emerge from a scenario where a country in one context (i.e., Slovenia) and a region in another (Friuli-Venezia-Giulia as Joint Managing Authority of Interreg III and IV) come to relate to each other in managing Community Initiative Programmes and eventually aim to create an EGTC. Finally, the analysis will focus on the nature of ‘regionalism’ in post-communist and West European territories.

This chapter will explore recent developments in the governance of cross-border cooperation. By focusing on the latest developments of Community Initiative Programmes such as Interreg III and IV, and on the process which led to the adoption and application of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), or Regulation 1082/2006, this chapter will assess the extent to which governance is state-centred in a ‘zero-sum game’ or is multi-layered within the EU. Within the multi-level governance theoretical framework, the chapter will address the issue whether we can speak of an alliance between sub-national, supra-national and transnational actors in cross-border cooperation programmes in pushing towards multi-level governance. It will firstly analyse EU Commission and Committee of the Regions’ White Papers and it will examine the stages and guiding principles of cross-border cooperation, from the Council of Europe Convention of 1980 under international law to the Commission European Communities Initiative and finally the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) under Community law. Here, the focus is on the process that led to Regulation 1802/2006. In particular, it will be explored the role played by supra-national institutions like the CoE and the Commission; transnational institutions such as the Committee of the Regions and the Association of European Border Regions and sub-national actors in cross-border cooperation and the alliances between these actors.

This chapter in focusing on the border between Italy and Slovenia will investigate whether this territory has become a laboratory where a new form of citizenship is at play, which challenges the long-held assumptions about the tight political link between citizenship and the nation-state. Post-national citizenship theories will be operationalised and in so doing the scholarly literature on the Upper Adriatic will be revisited. The chapter will then consider the kind of citizenship that has emerged and show how and to what extent new understandings of citizenship have developed in the area under consideration. It will consider both the changes brought about by the application of EU cross-border cooperation programmes and the EGTC, and the important and independent role played by ethnic minority groups (in particular through their NGOs associations and representatives) vis-a-vis the local government. It will be shown that ethnic minority associations, in actively participating in cross-border activities, become subjects rather than merely object of these programmes. It will be described as ethnic minority associations can have a leading role in pressing governmental actors across the border to overcome their mistrust and their fears and make full use of the cooperative tools provided by the EU.

This chapter will assess whether the daily politics of the EU is still state driven in a zero-sum notion game, or whether states and state representatives are no longer the only interface between the sub-national and supra-national levels or indeed between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ spheres. With reference to EU cohesion policy, it will test whether it is plausible to speak of the emergence of a ‘new’ mode of governance characterized by a dispersal of power and decision-making to a vast range of actors through a process of negotiation. It will assess whether it is better to speak of multi-level participation rather than multi-level governance; and of multi-layered dialogue rather than influence. In an attempt to flesh out the relationship that links sub-national actors, national and supra-national actors, cross-border regions provide the geographical framework where these issues are investigated. Cross-border cooperation programmes boosted and implemented by sub-national and national actors and transnational entities (i.e. Euroregions) will be scrutinised to understand whether their aim is effectively to overcome and transform boundaries and the national dimension. This chapter will critically engage with the literature on multi-level governance, Europeanization and cross-border cooperation.

This chapter, in providing a theoretical overview on contemporary citizenship, will unpack the multifaceted dimensions and multi-layered structure of citizenship. It will analyse both the interrelationship between citizenship, cultural diversity and liberal values and the emergence of a multi-level mode of governance, to assess the changing nature of citizenship within the EU due to cross-border cooperation activities. The role of civil society in contributing to move to a post-national understanding of citizenship will also be explored. It will be argued that nation-state centred theories do not really help either to understand or to explain complex political, social and cultural realities which exist in cross-border regions and territories marked by the presence of minority (ethnic) groups. It will be shown that ‘nation-state’ citizenship rights now appear to be competing with universal human rights that are guaranteed to all human beings equally. The achievement of ‘universal human rights’ is the result of individuals’ actions and mobilization not as ‘national citizens’ but as ‘abstract individuals’, on the basis of their personhood. Accordingly, those who did not have a voice, such as ‘non-citizens’, marginalized people or members of minority groups are claiming their right to participate in the public sphere as their ‘natural’ right.