The fresh cell cure – The new South Tyrolean daily newspaper
A scientific study shows how the responsible South Tyrol and Trentino differ from those in Tyrol and where further cooperation in the Euregion is possible.
Civil protection, culture, education, but also nature and landscape protection, regional planning and building law, hunting and fishing, tourism and sport, work and welfare are some of the specialist areas in which the states of Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino have more parallel responsibilities that make even more intensive cooperation in the Euregion possible.
These are the conclusions of a scientific study that was carried out as part of the Interreg project “Fit for Cooperation – Fit4Co” under the scientific direction of the Innsbruck university professors Peter Bußjäger, Esther Happacher and Walter Obwexer and in the presence of Governor Arno Kompatscher in Landhaus 1 in Bolzano has been presented.
governor Arno Kompatscher described the study on the responsible countries of the European region as an “important project with a European approach”.
Referring to the Euregio reform of the year, Kompatscher said, “the Euregio Competence Monitor appears at a time when we have given the Euregio a fresh cell treatment and extended democratic participation in the spirit of subsidiarity”. For South Tyrol and Trentino, however, she also comes at a moment when autonomy is suffering from centralist tendencies. “It is important to consolidate autonomy,” emphasized Kompatscher, “also in order to exploit the Euregional scope for action.”
The Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Innsbruck, Walter Obwexer, reported on the realization of the study. According to this, the think tank, the Euregio-Lab 2020 in Alpbach, proposed, among other things, an expansion of the tasks and projects of the Euregio in the project for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Euregio in 2021 and for this purpose suggested a scientific study to identify the interfaces in the competence equipment. This “Euregio Competence Monitor” is now available and shows that in the European institution of the European network of territorial cooperation EGTC Europaregion Tirol-Südtirol-Trentino also because of the new legal basis, there would be a relatively large number of areas and forms of cooperation. The competency monitor has been updated and adjusted time and time again. “Possibilities for cooperation are easy to see from this for politicians,” said Obwexer.
As far as he knows, there is no other area in Europe where there is more intensive cooperation than in the Euregion, explained the Innsbruck University Professor and Director of the Institute for Federalism, Peter Bussjäger, who presented the course content in detail today. He referred to the different constitutional requirements in the Euregio, Tyrol as part of a federal state, South Tyrol and Trentino as part of a unitary state. This is also reflected, for example, in case law: A federal constitution takes state rights into account. Bußganger added: “But that says nothing about the responsibilities, as a comparison of the state budgets shows.”
The 170 pages strong Euregio competence monitor is structured according to subject areas and identifies numerous interfaces in the conclusions. In addition to the entrances, there are important parallel responsibilities in the areas of state organization and participatory democracy, housing subsidies, industry and energy and road law.
The study presented today also includes a second part in which the competences of a second Euregion, namely the “Euregio without borders“Be scrutinized and surveyed, to which the federal state will be committed in 2021 Carinthiathe autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giulia and the region Veneto have merged. Like the Trento university professor Jens Wolk explained today, this Euregion has to struggle with similar difficulties: State centralism and the Italian constitutional court make autonomous action difficult. The Euregio without borders can draw on the experiences of Euregio Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino learn.
“We see this scientific study on the legislative competences of our countries as a clear food for thought in order to further expand cooperation for the benefit of our citizens,” said the Euregio Secretary General at the end of today’s presentation Marilena Defrancesco.
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