THE SOUTHERN UPPER RHINE AS A EUROREGION? CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF INTRA AREA INTEGRATION

摘要

The Southern Upper Rhine border region, also known as Regio Trirhena, is often considered in the scholarly literature as a model of transborder Euregio. Based on extensive analysis of existing literature, of data and documents available within the existing legal-institutional frameworks and on the utilisation of a number of diverse theoretic constructs, the aim of this paper is to reflect on whether the Southern Upper Rhine borderland can be qualified as a Euroregion by addressing its context, dimensions and underpinnings of area integration. First, it provides a brief background on the evolution of cross-border cooperation in the region. Second, it offers a theoretical framework for a conceptual definition of Euroregion. Third, it analyses elements of continuity and discontinuity in the Southern Upper Rhine Valley including the physical, functional and political dimension. It concludes that the degree of intra area integration does not depend only on the level of institutionalization of cross-border cooperation and on the number of cross-border projects and cross- border organizations but on different sets of symmetries/asymmetries