Improved cross-border relevance through integrated interventions: the TAPE tool of the INTERREG V-A Slovakia-Hungary Programme

ABSTRACT

The paper presents the first outcomes and results of using an integrated territorial tool applied by the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Hungary Cooperation Programme (2014–2020), the ‘Territorial Action Plan for Employment’, or, briefly: the TAPE. The tool is aimed at facilitating quality employment and cross-border labour mobility through the implementation of 2–7 interdependent projects within a geographically defined subregion of the programme area, with the involvement of SMEs, training institutions, NGOs and municipalities. The author introduces the tool and the nine TAPEs financed by the CBC programme and gives a comprehensive assessment of their outcomes and results from the points of view of cross-border labour market development, integrated soft planning and trust building with a special focus on the aspect of cross-border relevance. The study concludes that the tool does not meet the preliminary expectations: its cross-border relevance is not much stronger than the traditional standalone CBC projects. At the same time, the bottom-up cross-border planning exercise has significant added value which might make the tool attractive for other CBC programmes, too.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-border cooperation; Interreg; integrated tools; cross-border; relevance of projects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 From 2021, the Interreg system has been changed but – due to the time period of the paper's focus, these changes will not be analysed in this study.

2 The transport infrastructure projects included two parts: a Slovak and a Hungarian one.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the TKP2021-NKTA funding scheme, [project number TKP2021-NKTA-51].