La cooperación transfronteriza entre España y Portugal en perspectiva

Abstract

En este artículo realizamos un recorrido diacrónico por la cooperación transfronteriza institucional entre España y Portugal, delimitando sus respectivos periodos de vigencia, sus principales hitos o referentes y las características de cada una de ellos. La metodología combina el análisis documental sobre fuentes secundarias con en el análisis del contenido y con el trabajo de campo. Entre las conclusiones, constatamos la decisiva influencia de los Fondos Estructurales Europeos, especialmente del Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y de la Iniciativa Comunitaria INTERREG en el proceso de consolidación de la cooperación transfronteriza en esta frontera, la proliferación de estructuras, instrumentos y agentes de cooperación; así como la necesidad de un mayor acercamiento entre la cooperación institucional y la cooperación tradicional.

The following paper is basically a diachronic vision of institutional cross-border cooperation between the Spanish and Portuguese border. Within institutional cooperation, we differentiate between first, second and third generation cross-border cooperation, determining their respective periods of validity, their key milestones and their fundamental characteristics. The methodology of this work has an hybrid nature; combining the documentary analysis of secondary sources in order to identify the main references in the field, with an analysis of the content and with the ethnographic field work carried out by the same author. Among the conclusions drawn from this work, perhaps the most relevant is the confirmation of the difference and distance between traditional cooperation and institutional cooperation on this border. In the context of the Portuguese Spanish border, institutional cooperation has evolved from centralized planning from above, characteristic of the first generation, to cooperation from below, while agents, actions, and instruments have been diversified and new shared management and participation structures have been created.